Skittish kitten - how best to socialise?

[EdnaPontellier]

We added two kittens to our house in August, and they're now 7 months old (we already had 2 10 year old cats, and after a bit of squabbling they're getting along well). One kitten is very happy, friendly and playful. The other, Jasper, is terribly highly strung. He was a scared shaking baby when we brought him home, and unfortunately a couple of recent bad experiences at the vets - most recently where the vet cut his tummy with scissors when removing stitches - have set him back massively.

He's affectionate on his own terms, mostly at night when he'll get under the covers and lie against me, but if you try to pick him up or stroke him he runs away, scratches, flattens his ears etc.

We love him to bits - do we just have to accept he'll always be wild? Will stroking and handling him stress him out too much? Wondered if anyone else had experience of very nervous cats and wisdom to impart!

Not really sure if our scaredy cat is quite as scaredy as this but for what it's worth, we got two kittens at six weeks, three years ago now. One was definitely more confident but both seemed happy and friendly. After a few months (I can't really remember when) the confidence of one and the scaredy-ness of the other was becoming clearer and also, I think because we had one cat throwing himself at us for attention the other became less likely to sit near us, want attention etc as perhaps we hadn't handled it as much.

We then tried to fuss both equally and on their own terms - i.e. scaredy cat didn't liked to be picked up/sit on laps but he still loved attention. His favourite place became the arm of the sofa next to DH or sitting on the desk whenever DH was there. Attention-seeking cat became my cat and scaredy-cat became DH's cat - the love affair has continued and scaredy cat adores DH these days...

We had some set backs too. After we were burgled through a window scaredy refused to go outside and even hid behind the sofa/under bed whenever the window was opened. When we moved house he spent most of the first few weeks huddled in a corner of one room.

He much happier now and loves the outside and strangely enough is much more of a fighter outside even though 'my' cat is boss when they are inside. He's also really affectionate - wants to be in the same room and me and DH all the time and follows us around the house to almost stalker-ish extremes! Still loves to sit on the arm of the sofa and be fussed and visits us every night for a cuddle under the quilt etc. However, he's never been interested in sitting on laps and has a little growl if you pick him up for more than a few seconds and always hides when we have visitors.

Anyway, very long post but basically I think I'd persevere with the strokes and fusses at least, if not loads of picking him up.