My wife and I have been waking up sore for a while now and are ready to go on a mattress finding journey yet again.
I’m 5’7; 170lb; side sleeper - prefer soft
She is 5’4; not asking weight; back/side sleeper - prefers firm; runs hot
We started in 2011 with a local mattress company and got an innerspring core with 2 or 3" talalay latex (ILD19). The mattress was very firm. Added a 3" talalay latex ILD19 topper from them and lasted another 3 years.
In January 2018, I came here and ended up at another sort of local mattress company with a pure latex mattress composed of a 3" ILD 13 top layer then 3" ILD 22-24 middle and 6" ILD 36 Core
Added a 3" Casper latex topper in August 2019 as I was developing butt/hip pain that worsened during the day and she was also getting back/hip pain and poor sleep. The topper and new pillows seemed to help for a while.
For the past few weeks, I wake up with lower back and leg pains fairly often. Also sometimes feel like my hip (and sometimes shoulder) is digging into the mattress.
She has complained of tossing and turning and lower back pain as well.
I am pretty much set on the Leggett and Platt Prodigy Comfort Elite base as she reads in bed and also noted that her best night sleep was in the hospital after kids were born. She wants to start sleeping with head elevated.
I had thought of going with the Air-Pedic 800 split top king mattress to allow adjustments but she is concerned about any motor noises.
Now I’m wondering about going the custom latex route but don’t want to mess up again…
I’m also unsure how the move to an adjustable may affect our goal of various ILDs to layer.
I did go up to TempFlow/Selectabed/Airpedic. I went to TempFlow to check out their TempFlow memory foam mattresses and they felt good, I still prefer Tempurpedic.
While I was there, I checked out Airpedic 700, 800, and 1000. I think they all had latex or memory foam on top. Airpedic is like SleepNumber except Airpedic has 1 air chamber for back/hips and another one for head/feet. I guess it was cool to be able to adjust back firmness. I guess SN has only 1 zone or air bladder. With Air, I think each side has their own firmness control on remote. While air bed is not for me, I was impressed with Airpedic 800.
Welcome to our Mattress Forum. Glad to see BillyIdol had some useful thoughts to share.
If you do end up going the custom/DIY route, we have a number of seasoned DIYers in the forum and you may also have success discussing your custom latex/DIY ideas with Ken Hightower at Arizona Premium Mattress.
Regardless of which manufacturer or retailer you ultimately select, I’d make sure to have a detailed conversation with your finalists and provide them with your stats, body type, sleeping styles, general preferences and history, some general information about your current mattress, or what you have tested, and any other specific information or circumstances that could affect your choice of a mattress so they can help you choose which may be your best fit whether it be “ready made” or custom for your sleeping needs.
To update, I was able to figure out the exact components of the current mattress:
Talalay Global Latex foam in that mattress:
top layer 3" celsion Talalay 14ILD
transition layer 3"Talalay 24ILD
Core layer 6" Talalay 36ILD
Rayon Fire Barrier
Polyester cover
We also had a Casper topper that we purchased in 2019. From YouTube videos at the time, it looks like it had a 1" memory foam and a ‘infused’ latex foam middle then some soft top.
We went to check out a local store that had Savvy Rest mattresses and found all 4 (two splits with different density makeups) to feel too ‘thin’ for lack of a better term at only 9"
We also removed the Casper topper off of ours and I remembered why I had it on - would get a ‘dead’ left shoulder that woke me during the night (and I fall asleep on my right side). Wife tossed and turned. This continued on night 2.
So now thinking will need to get a minimum of 4 layers and looking more at SleepEZ. Wondering if I need to go with a
Soft Talalay
Soft Dunlop
Medium Dunlop
Medium Dunlop
Also trying to decide timing of moving to the adjustable bed (Leggett and Platt Comfort Elite) as we likely won’t agree on a sleep setting but could at least see what the adjustments offer on the current 12" latex mattress before deciding on twin XLs.
If you’re going to do a soft mattress you should probably find something with zoning in the support layer. I was sleeping on an unzoned soft mattress for several years and although it had good pressure relief it caused lower back pain due to the midsection collapsing. I didn’t exactly realize the mattress was contributing to it until I switched to a medium firm with a 3 zone coil and my back felt a lot better.
Flobeds had the option to zone an all latex mattress, if they still do you might want to try that…
Glad to see BillyIdol had some useful thoughts to share.