Any suggestions of Brand...excellent alignment support needed, bad lower back, but I'm used to a pillow top!

[phoenix]

Hi melknee,

What I gleamed is that I need really good alignment support, but some comfort too because I am a side sleeper. Not a super thick comfort support, middle level, because I need to reach the alignment support core in order to preserve my back, and not sleep scooped! Yes?

Yes … the two main functions of a mattress are that it keeps your spine and joints in good alignment in all your sleeping positions over the course of the night and that it also relieves pressure points as well. Everything else that you can “feel” is more of a preference than a “necessity” (see post #4 here and post #2 here). Of course what you “feel” has little to do with the quality and durability of the materials inside the mattress because lower quality and less durable materials can feel the same as higher quality and more durable materials … at least for a short while until the lower quality materials begin to soften and break down prematurely.

First off, to answer your question, I am located in Santa Monica, Calif for suggestions about options.

The better options or possibilities I’m aware of in and around the Santa Monica area (subject to making sure that any specific mattress you are considering meets the quality/value guidelines I linked previously) are listed in the list for the Greater Los Angeles region in post #2 here.

So I think we liked the Tempurpedic Tempur Cloud Supreme line, in particular the one with the 3" memory foam top. (it is the middle one - not too much top layer) I believe 3" of memory foam. We also sort of liked the Sleep Number bed M7, which is the model with the memory foam comfort level. I believe 5" of memory foam. However, I preferred the tempurpedic and my husband the sleep number. Would love to know what you think of sleep number, felt a little like a gimmick to me, and I felt like I was a little on an inner tube or air bed, unless I was on their memory foam model. Is Sleep Numbers core base quality?

As you probably know from the tutorial I would tend to avoid the major brands including Tempurpedic. While Tempurpedic does use good quality materials … they are certainly in a much higher budget range than many other memory foam mattresses that use similar quality materials that are made by many smaller manufacturers.

You can see my thoughts about airbeds in general this article. While any mattress can be a good match for a specific person because each person’s needs and preferences or the criteria that are most important to them can be very different … in general terms I would tend to avoid them unless there is a very compelling reason that an airbed would be a better choice for you in “real life” (outside of the many “marketing stories” that you will hear about them) than the many other options or types of mattresses that are available to you.

If for some reason you are committed to an airbed and you are convinced that there are no other types of mattresses that will meet your criteria then there are some other airbed options available to you that are listed in post #3 here that may be in a much better quality/value range than the Sleep Number you are considering.

So if I liked the Tempupedic Tempur Cloud Supreme with 3" memory foam, but want a cheaper option, what mattress would be good to look at as a more affordable option?

There is more about the different ways that one mattress can “match” or “approximate” another one in post #9 here. If you are considering an online purchase then the tutorial includes a link to a list of some of the better online memory foam options I’m aware of (in the optional online step) and several of these make mattresses that are designed to approximate the tempurpedic line (including the Tempurpedic Cloud Supreme) and are in lower budget ranges. There may also be some local options that feel similar to you as well (even if they don’t have exactly the same layers and components in their design) but you would need to test them in person to see how closely they compare for you in terms of comfort and PPP and you would also need to make sure that they use good quality/density materials as well to confirm that there aren’t any lower quality materials or weak links in the design.

I would love to spend $1500, $2000 max, but really $1500. So, then I was looking at Loom & Leaf’s Relaxed Firm as an alternative. How does is materials stand up to tempurpedia in terms of my alignment support, and the quality of the memory foam?

As I mentioned in my last reply the only way to know whether any mattress is a good “match” for you in terms of comfort and PPP is based on your own careful testing or personal experience … not on specs or theory.

There is more information about the quality of the materials in the Loom & Leaf in post #2 here (along with some of the other “simplified choice” mattresses) and a forum search on Loom Leaf (you can just click the link) will bring up more comments and feedback about it as well.

I feel like I definitely need to sleep on a mattress a month to make a good call since I have never slept on memory foam, so I guess a good refund policy is important too.

I would agree that if you are considering a mattress that you haven’t tried in person then a good return/exchange policy would be much more important for most people … particularly if you haven’t slept on a similar type of mattress as well.

ps - what do you think of any of the Ikea mattresses? I was going to go there and check out their memory foam options. Are they junk?

While I can’t speak to the “comfort” of any mattress or whether any mattress is a good match for you in terms of PPP because your own careful testing (hopefully using the testing guidelines in step 4 of the tutorial) or personal experience is the only reliable way to know … outside of PPP the most important part of the value of a mattress is it’s durability and a mattress is only as good as its construction and the type and quality/durability of the materials inside it regardless of the name of the manufacturer on the label.

There are some comments about the Ikea mattresses in post #3 here and the posts it links to. While they do have some good quality/value choices … I would avoid their memory foam mattresses because as far as I know they all use 3 lb memory foam which is a lower density than I would suggest considering (see the quality/durability guidelines here).

Phoenix