Beyond frustrated the last 2 months

Mattress Talk General Mattresses Questions
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190 lb male. Side sleeper/stomach hybrid.

Had a Leesa Original for about 10 years. It was time for an upgrade. Thought I would buy a mattress and be done with it. I was incorrect.

Upgraded to the Leesa Oasis Chill. A medium/firm hybrid. First night may have been the best sleep I’ve ever had. From there it went downhill. Gradually over 2 weeks, my midsection would completely hammock. Extreme pain all day towards the end.

From there went to the Iflip Napa as it was recommended to me on Reddit. It has a softer and a firmer side. Started softer side, again a few days of great sleep. The magical 2 week period occured again and I was totally hammocking. Shoulders and hips floating and midsection not held up at all.

I thought to myself, I’m gonna get the firmest thing I can find, no way could hammocking occur. I got a Stearns and Foster Lakeridge Tighttop firm. Oh boy is it firm. Extremely uncomfortable, but at this point I don’t even care as long as Im not in pain the whole next day. For 2 weeks (My lucky number) it was fine. Shoulders hurt like hell, hips were sore, but my back was good as there was no hammocking. Last night I woke up and apparently I shifted down the bed. The spot where my hips are which is indented was where my midsection ended up. I can barely walk.

What in the literal hell do I do. I’m at a loss. My goal was to stay in the Costco realm, but I’m done with that.

My current plan is to drive 2 hours and go visit Engineered Sleep tomorrow. They have latex, which is my hail Mary to fix this problem.

Can anyone answer what my issue is? Why are the comfort layers giving out on me after 2 weeks? This can’t be normal.

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Hi Rcmoormt,

Welcome to the Mattress UnderGround. Thank you for your question.

What foundation are you using under these mattresses?

At 190 lbs, and I don’t mean this the wrong way, unless the Leesa was defective in some way, I’d consider it unlikely that it would develop enough hammocking in just two weeks to cause what you’re describing. Anything is possible, though.

One thing I would have liked to see before moving on to another mattress is placing it directly on the floor for a few nights. If the symptoms disappeared, that would point toward the foundation or support system rather than the mattress itself. If the mattress truly was defective, then a replacement would have been the appropriate next step. One defective mattress doesn’t necessarily say anything about the overall quality of that model or brand unless there’s a consistent pattern of similar reports.

The same applies to the Costco Stearns & Foster. I wouldn’t normally expect it to develop meaningful body impressions in only a couple of weeks either.

Foundations can absolutely be part of the problem. Slats that flex too much, are spaced more than about 3 inches apart, or are too thin, can allow excessive deflection under the heavier parts of your body. As a general guideline, I like to see slats spaced no more than 3 inches apart, about 2 to 3 inches wide, at least 3/4 inch thick, with minimal flex. Regardless of what some manufacturers state in their warranty FAQs, a rigid, well-supported foundation is almost always the better choice. This can be true even if it is the same foundation you were previously using on your old Leesa Original, if slatted, they can become warped, bent or flexing.

Engineered Sleep builds quality mattresses, and I think it’s worth making the trip. They’ll probably ask you about your foundation as well because it’s an important part of the sleep system. Their Duo lineup is especially well thought out and performs very well on a solid, properly supportive foundation.

Hope this helps,

Maverick

@EngineeredSleep

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Appreciate the reply, with regards to the foundation, my slats are spaced too far apart, so I had perfectly cut plywood on top of them. It’s the same foundation I used for the OG Leesa for 10 years.its thick, there was zero issue. That was for the new Leesa and Isleep. For the S&F I totally bought a new frame and foundation which is the exact one they recommend… The posturepedic base… This was juuuust in case the frame was causing the issue and this would rule it out.

So what happens is.. I get in bed nightly. Everything is fine. I wake up in the middle of the night and I am sunk in pretty good. For the first 2 it was my midsection, for the S&F it’s my hips. The foam just gives out after only a couple weeks.

The funny thing is, my GF has a very very cheap Novaform 8". I’m between exchanging these mattresses, I would put that on my foundation. It felt like a dream.

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Leesa mattresses are pretty cheaply built imo. I believe you’d like a medium glacier apex. It has a memory foam feel with a high density quilted foam in the top. Mine feels very solid and when I first got it I was 220 lbs at 6’0". It’s a 6/10 firmness.

I also think you’d like a nest and wild hybrid if you’d want to keep your budget under 1k. Though this is lesser known in the forum here, just my personal favorite. They put their foams through a process that increases durability. It’s a 6.5/10 firmness

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Hi Rcmoormt,

I have looked at all the information you have provided. I am not certain your the issues of attributing the the mattresses breaking down, when the pattern doesn’t really support that conclusion. Not to say you are not feeling what you are feeling, but I am not convinced what you are feeling is not actually happening as a result of a mattress failing.

One thing that I keep coming back to is that you’ve now experienced essentially the same progression on several very different mattresses. The Leesa, iFlip, and Stearns & Foster all use different constructions, support systems, and comfort materials, yet you’re describing a similar result after roughly the same period of time, except the Novaform 8" as I am not certain you have spent the full 2 weeks on it. From a materials standpoint, it would be unusual for all of them to develop a meaningful loss of support in only a couple of weeks.

That’s why I’m not yet convinced the mattresses themselves are actually developing permanent hammocking. What you’re feeling is certainly real, but whether it’s being caused by actual material softening, the comfort layers responding to heat and continuous loading during the night, the normal break-in process, or something else entirely are different questions.

One thing I would genuinely like to see is a side-profile photograph of you lying in your normal sleeping position after you’ve been on the mattress for 30 to 60 minutes. A photo can often tell us whether your spine is actually falling into a hammock or whether the mattress is maintaining reasonably good alignment while something else is contributing to the discomfort. Sometimes what feels like a loss of support is actually a change in how the comfort layers are interacting with your body, and a photo gives us a much more objective way to evaluate what’s happening.

The Novaform is another interesting data point, but I’m not sure we can draw any firm conclusions from it just yet. While you mentioned that it felt like a dream, I don’t know whether you’ve slept on it long enough to know if it would follow the same pattern after a couple of weeks. Likewise, you’ve experienced this on both hybrid and all-foam mattresses, so I don’t think we can attribute it to any one material or support system based on the information we have so far. Unless, you feel like the issue was significantly more noticeable on the two hybrids, then it could be a spring support issue, pushing back against your pressure points.

Before concluding that each mattress is failing after a couple of weeks, I’d like to gather a little more objective information. If you can post that side-profile photo, I think it would give everyone a much better idea of what’s actually happening and help narrow down whether we’re looking at a support issue, a comfort-layer issue, or something else altogether. You can actually insert those photos into Dr. Rick’s mattress checker app. This will actually tell us if you are hammocking or if we need to look elsewhere.

Hope this helps,

Maverick

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So the problems on the first 2 don’t mimic the S&F. The first 2 it was flat out extreme hammock. I would go to bed, everything was perfect. I would wake up 3am and my side would be completely abnormally sunk in. This progressed more and more each night until I literally couldn’t walk after about 2 weeks with each. I would be on my side as usual, nothing out of the ordinary. I believe a combination of my body heat and weight of my torso as I tilt to my stomach played a large part. The comfort layers were breaking in significantly faster in my midsection than anywhere else. It wasn’t sagging, it was comfort layer degradation.

My S&F. I don’t have the same issue at all. The comfort layers are breaking in where they should, especially my hips. The issue was, especially last night, if I happen to move in the middle of the night, slide down the bed a bit, that broken in hip section is now below my midsection. Again, this body indentation with my hips only happens in the middle of the night. I go to bed, everything is fine. Hours later, I’m sunk in a bit. If I move, that causes issues.

IThe first few nights on the Iflip and Leesa were absolutely amazing. It just went downhill rapidly. I didn’t sleep any differently, the mattress changed over a couple weeks and my body rejected it terribly. My thought is latex as it is more resistant to heat in the middle of the night and is more responsive if I do move. I just need resiliency basically, which foam is the opposite of that.

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None of these mattresses should be causing that level of hammocking after only two weeks. One thing that still gives me pause is how quickly the hip area seemed to break in on the S&F. Even if that’s considered normal break-in, it happened much faster than I would have expected. I suspect the Tempur material in the comfort layer may have contributed to that. Personally, I think using Tempur foam in a Stearns & Foster is a questionable design choice. Stearns & Foster built a reputation as a premium mattress long before Tempur-Pedic acquired the brand, and they didn’t need Tempur foam to achieve that. It seems to sacrifice some resilience in favor of pressure relief. A direction Somnigroup seems to be going with many of the brands mattresses.

I’d use the Mattress Checker app to see if there’s an alignment issue, actual body impression or support issue. If it measures normally and your body is in alignment, it may indicate the mattress simply isn’t a good match for your body rather than that it’s defective or something with the comfort foams.

Regardless of whether the comfort material is latex, polyfoam, or memory foam, that degree of support loss in such a short period isn’t considered normal. The one possible exception would be very heat-sensitive memory foam combined with someone who sleeps exceptionally hot, but even then, it shouldn’t progress to the point you’re describing after only a couple of weeks. Particularly with the mattresses you tried, unless you were sleeping on the softer side of the flippable Napa, but even then, for the foams to suddenly lose support in 2 weeks time, rare, but nothing is impossible, i suppose.

It is possible that your particular body is extremely sensitive to very tiny changes, but you would feel that in the Novaform as well.