Handouts fever

If you hand out materials for the class to work with, do you hand them out just when they need to focus on them? Do you remove them as soon as they stop being useful for your teaching purposes?
Tough questions for tough teachers.
I always hand materials out when I begin with the class so my students get lost in it and don't pay much attention to me. Another problem!!! When teaching children I have already worked out this problem, but when teaching to my classmates, I haven't. It seems that my brain divides the two types of teaching and thinks that my colleagues are not going to get involved in it until I say so... but that is not the case. So, what I have been faced AGAIN with is this anxiety for delivering my handouts as soon as possible, as if they were burning and I had to get rid of them.
Please, could you help me out. I know there are no many options, that I should wait, but maybe you have other ideas you would like to share.
Hope to hear from you soon, 00
Lore