Please don't apologize for asking questions, and don't worry about them being silly.
Hatchlings are best sexed by popping. As the animal grows, they develop more musculature and it become harder to pop, and easier to probe. The popping process is so quick and easy in a hatchling that I doubt it adds much more stress to the process of hatching, being washed, and weighed.
Most babies take their first meal, usually a small furred rat pup or hopper mouse, within a week or two of their first shed. They seem to know what to do. There are always outliers that eat super early or really late. Sometimes, if the baby takes really long to start eating, assist feeding may be necessary, and in those cases you need to weigh the stress of not eating vs. the stress of assist feeding. I imagine that assist feeding must not be too bad, since most of them start eating on their own shortly after that.
Hope that helps, and good luck!
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