Hello, this is my first time posting so if I should look elsewhere for this answer, please let me know and I'll delete! I've been searching here for a while/lurking and haven't found exactly what I'm needing for my situation.

I got two new girls April 9 (Kiwi and Watermelon) and have been working with bonding with them since they got settled in a few days after. Kiwi has been fine, but Watermelon has been a bit less cooperative and I'm trying to not do anything to make my relationship with her worse. When I got her she was a little over 8 weeks oop, so I know her being so young can make things a little harder for her. I work from home so every day I will grab their pouch and have them hang out with me all/a majority of the day. 90% of the time they'll just sleep and I can pet both of them without any issues. They even make the cute popping sounds which I just think of as snoring haha. The times they do wake, Watermelon will start crabbing until she makes herself comfy again, and will go back to sleep pretty fast. She won't always crab and when she doesn't she'll just stare at me, get comfy and go back to sleep. But when she does crab it doesn't usually seem to be caused by anything (occasionally it is me shifting around), and just makes me thing she's cranky? This has been happening since I've gotten them, so I'm not surprised when she does this. When she does I'll just calmly talk to her until she settles.

At night she has started to stay closer to the back of her cage until I'm not around (then I can hear her playing around with Kiwi). This only started a few days ago, before then she would hang out in her hammock near the front of the cage and take treats from me. She'll still take treats from me, but she's obviously wary as she won't move away from her spot and wait for me to bring the treat closer. she'll even avoid eating and sit still like a statue until a few minutes of me not moving. Nothing has changed, though, with their environment or how I've been approaching them, so I'm not sure why this attitude change happened. A few days before this started, she would even come over to my hand and sniff and grab me and crawled on my arm. She would even play with straws with me, so this regression is odd to me.

Sorry about the wall of text, I just want to make sure I have all my observations and context so there's no assumptions. I'm just looking for some suggestions where to move forward from here to maybe help put her at ease. I'm waiting for my tent to come in (I used to have one for my previous boys but it got lost in my recent move), so I will start tent time with them soon which I'm hoping can help.

Thanks!

Hey! Welcome. (Your glider names are so adorable, btw).
It's strange that Watermelon suddenly changed her behavior like that. Is she in heat? Gliders in heat can get really cranky. They go into heat once a month and it lasts three or four days, I believe.
Has anything happened that could have caused her stress? A new pet in the house, family troubles/fights (gliders are very attuned to human stress), a really deep clean of their cage, a change in diet, travels, a lot of people near her cage, new smells in the room that they're in, new sounds? Storms and weather (and moon cycles) can also affect them. Has there been any drastic change in the weather since she started being withdrawn and wary?
Have you changed your shampoo/deodorant/perfume lately? Gliders bond with their humans mainly by sound and smell, not by sight. If you changed your smells, Watermelon might not recognize you and think that you're a completely different person, thus being less trusting of you.

Sorry about all of the questions, I'm just trying to list a bunch of possibilities why she's suddenly wary of you.

Thank you, and no problem!! Best to cover all of the bases! I think out of all of those, only two would fit what may be happening since nothing about the environment or smell has changed (I made sure not to change anything since I knew that could cause stress and confusion).

I've only had neutered males in the past, so female glider behavior is definitely new to me. It didn't even cross my mind she may be in heat. The weather has also been a little rough the past few days (with storms, tornado warnings, rain, etc) so it may have also been that. She was definitely a lot better last night she came over to my hand to grab and nibble on me, so I'm thinking it was one of those two things causing her attitude change. I'm just glad I haven't done anything wrong to upset her, I always worry too much about doing the wrong thing and unknowingly upsetting any animal/pet.

Awesome. Yeah, weather can effect these little guys a lot. I'm always amazed to see how their personalities change when there are storms and bad weather. Glad to hear that she's doing better!
I get you - I'm always so worried about doing the wrong things and upsetting pets! You're doing great.

hey, so sorry to do this but I can't work out how to post my own post and I really need help with my glider. I rescued her from a bad owner and I think she's got multiple problems, I live in a country where you would not want to take them to the vet because they are more likely to hurt or kill them than help them. I have 3 other gliders in another cage and they don't really get along so she's all alone, but I dunno how to make a post so I can't really ask for help, if someone can explain this to me I'll make a post as soon as I can, my suggies are my life and I'm glad I resued her from the home she was in but I don't completely know how to help except changing her diet and giving her friends(she was in a hamster cage by herself)