A hamster sitter working from ordinary pet instincts will do exactly the wrong things with complete kindness: peek into the house at noon, lift the lid to check she is alive, and tidy the nest while she sleeps. Your notes exist to replace instinct with her actual biology, so they must read clearly to someone who has never kept a nocturnal animal before.
The Core Rule Comes First
The notes open with the rule everything else hangs on: she must not be woken or handled in daylight. Checks happen at dusk when she wakes, because that is when she emerges to eat, drink, run, and use her wheel, and a sitter who visits in the evening sees the real animal rather than a furious, frightened sleeper. State what the sitter should observe at that dusk check: bright movement, food taken, water level dropping across days, and the wheel showing signs of overnight use. Handling stays optional even then, and only if she climbs out willingly toward a hand, never by digging her out of the burrow for a cuddle.
Daylight visits, if the sitter passes by, have one quiet job only. Food and water can be refreshed quietly without waking her, topping up the bottle and the dish from outside her sleeping area, with no house lifting, no nest tidying, and no enclosure rearrangement. A sitter who understands that stillness is care, not neglect, is the sitter this species needs.
Emergencies Versus Everything That Can Wait
Spell out what a genuine emergency looks like versus what can wait until evening, because a new sitter cannot judge a silent enclosure. An emergency is finding her awake and unresponsive in the open, visibly injured, struggling to breathe, cold and limp if gently touched at dusk, or an enclosure failure like a flood or an escape, and those findings mean calling you and the veterinarian immediately, day or night. Almost everything else, including a food dish that looks untouched at midday, a rearranged nest entrance, or a quieter than usual evening, can wait until the dusk check or a message to you. Her wheel and burrow stay undisturbed throughout, since the wheel is her main exercise and the burrow is her security, and a sitter who cleans either one mid-stay destroys the two things keeping her calm.
Writing, Terms, and the Handoff Itself
A photograph attached to the notes solves arguments words cannot. Snap her enclosure exactly as it should look, showing the house position, the wheel, the bottle height, and the depth of bedding, and the sitter can restore anything that shifts during the stay by matching the picture instead of guessing. Add one line naming her usual wake time and her favorite food item, because a sitter who can greet her at the right hour with the right food starts the first evening as a friend rather than as a disturbance.
Get the sitter's agreed terms confirmed in writing before you leave, covering visit timing at dusk, the daylight rule, feeding amounts, what counts as an emergency, and pay, so the arrangement is a clear agreement rather than a hopeful conversation. Leave your mobile number, a backup contact, and your veterinarian's details on the same sheet, and walk the sitter through the enclosure once in the evening before the stay so the dusk routine is familiar rather than theoretical. Keep the notes to one page where possible, with the core rule at the top in the largest print. For sharing those notes digitally, a Care Pass through KinsLe gives the one sitter you named scoped access that runs only across the sitting dates you set.