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The Story Behind ScratchSleeves

Like all good inventions, ScratchSleeves were born of necessity. When our son, Max, was 4 months old his little face erupted with angry, itchy eczema. And he scratched. A lot. One particularly bad morning, which will stay with us forever, we found him in his cot covered in blood and looking like a scene from a horror movie. He had somehow extracted his arms from his swaddling blanket, wriggled just one thumb out of the flip-over mitts of his sleep-suit and scratched his poor itchy little face to shreds.

4 month old sleeping baby with an angry red eczema rash on his face and forehead. Copyright Trolls and Tribulations Ltd 2008

We had already searched the internet for an effective solution to his scratching and not found anything remotely useful; so Jae set to work with her trusty sewing machine, an unwanted t-shirt and some silk left over from making her wedding dress and ‘ScratchSleeves – the mitts really do that stay on’ were born. The cardigan design makes sure that the mitts stay firmly in place and the silk mitts work brilliantly to stop razor sharp nails working their way through the mitts themselves. They worked so well that we gave a couple of sets to a scratchy little girl we met at Max’s swimming class. The thank you email we got back from her parents said it all “…for the first time in her life, Erin has slept through the night. She also woke up without any fresh scratches on her face. We can’t thank you enough.”

That was over 15 years ago. We have now helped countless other little ones sleep comfortably through the night with our original ScratchSleeves design. Over the years the size range and product range has expanded to meet our customers’ needs. And there’s plenty more to come. If you or your scratchy little one needs more than our regular range to make them comfortable, just drop us a line and we’ll do our best to come up with an effective solution.

The motivation behind ScratchSleeves is to ensure that parents don’t have to struggle with their little one’s scratching in the same way we did. It was a horrid time and one that could have been avoided. Everything we do, every decision we make is focused on providing an easy, effective solution for our customers because we understand that they are having a rough time. This ethos covers everything: from ensuring that our website is as user-friendly as possible, to designing our packaging so it fits through a standard letterbox meaning that parents don’t have to drop everything to receive their order or, worse still, wait a day before going to the Post Office to collect it. If you come across anything that we can improve on, just drop us a line and we’ll do our very best.

We share the knowledge that we have built up about the practicalities of living with baby eczema in the ScratchSleeves blog – hopefully it will help other parents get to grips with their little one’s scratching. We’re super excited to announce that our blog is being turned into a proper book. ‘The Calm Skin Guide: A Parent’s Guide to Childhood Eczema’ by Jae Rance and Amber Hatch is being published by Profile Books and will be available early in 2024.

The ScratchSleeves family. Parents Jae and Mark with 6 yo Max leaning into Mark' shoulder and 3 yo Zoe. Copyright Trolls and Tribulations Ltd 2012

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Jae Rance & Mark Bean

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