15 years on a memory foam bed. We believe the brand was astra beds who based their designs on Tempurpedic’s and we’ve loved it, but it has recently started to break-down a little bit and has on occasion had me waking up with a little back pain. Combine that with recently moving to a warmer state we are also sleeping a little hotter than we’d like so this led us to looking at latex.
I’m a 175lb / 5’10 / male and my wife is 130lb / 5’6. We are both back and side combo sleepers. Our foundation is made from a wire foundation with 3.5" wide wood slats that run head to toe with .75-1" space between them. These slats are supported by the steel cross braces (.5-1" wide) every ~6-8".
After reading this forum and other forums and reviewing many of the mattress sellers’ websites, we ended up choosing to purchase a DIY option from one of this forums trusted partners whose posts here pushed me over the edge on what to buy and also to buy from them. Using one of the online mattress configurators and the advice given by them here, we ended up with constructing a king mattress from (6) Twin XL toppers of 3" latex ea. Firm Dunlop (38 ILD) under Medium Dunlop (28 ILD) under Soft Talalay (19 ILD). We’ve had this for almost three weeks now, but are very concerned and uncomfortable.
After the first night, both of our sides have notable stiffness differences/contour between the center and perimeter of the king mattress versus the center of each Twin XL. This has only gotten progressively worse. If we lay where the seam is between both of the Twin XL, it’s firm and supportive but has a noticeable ridge. Move part way to either side and our hips and shoulders are no longer level and gives us the sensation of falling into a hole. It’s very noticable and it honestly feels a bit like I’m laying in a hammock when laying in the center of the Twin XL. For side sleeping, the result is somewhat less pronounced since you’d expect to sink in more anyway, but if not laying exactly in the center of each Twin XL while on your side, it requires a little strength to keep from falling over. The support when laying on the side almost feels like it’s gone now as well with noticeable pressure on my hips and shoulders.
We spent a couple of nights experimenting with different layer orientations but nothing was a viable option. We also spent some time “refluffing” the individual layers thinking we may have put them on wrong, but no luck. We even visited a couple of mattress stores recently to check our calibration for unreasonable expectations, and while they didn’t have any full latex mattresses, nothing there felt like this. Honestly, if we hadn’t just purchased this, I’d have said we got a 10+ year old super broken in / cheap mattress. It’s terrible and we’re very unhappy.
Did we do this all wrong and order the wrong mattress?
Where should we go from here?
We just reached out to the seller but couldn’t get them on the phone and they haven’t replied back yet to our email.
In the interim, we’d appreciate any insight and advice the collective here has.
edit: typos
After yet another night of terrible sleep and both waking up with back pain due to the large amount of sag in the mattress, we had one last desperate idea; put the mattress directly on the floor. I’m fairly certain at this point that the problem is most definitely the latex mattress itself. Directly on a solid wood floor, there’s still a large “taco” and a complete lack of support in the middle of the mattresses and the ridge in the middle is still present. We’ve given up and cannot sleep another night on these things. With our old mattress back in place, even despite its age, there is significantly less sag and more support than the new one. In the meantime, we will continue to reach out and to wait for the seller to get back to us. If I don’t hear back soon I’m afraid I might need to “out” the trusted partner / seller in hopes that someone can help us get in contact with them about what to do.
Hello pechelman and welcome to the forums! I know you didn’t post this is our section of the forums specifically, but I just wanted to throw out a reminder that some companies might have closed their customer service department over the weekend, and perhaps even for Memorial Day for the weekend as well, but if they’re a trusted member of this website, I’m confident they will get you taken care of shortly!
Hi pechelman,
Welcome to our Mattress Forum!
Thanks for the useful details, history, and stats. I am sorry to hear that the new mattress from one of our Trusted Members seems to not work out for you.
As Jeremy at Sleep EZ mentioned… with the sales going on and possibly reduced staff over the Memorial Day long weekend, customer service is usually on the back burner. I am hoping that you reached out to the seller today and had a chance to discuss your situation.
Your approach and research lead to a good durable product that meets many of your stated criteria which would typically have good chances of success. Even with the best research and guidance sometimes there is something that escaped attention as there are too many unknowns and interconnected variables involved that are unique to each person … if a mattress is well inside a suitable comfort/support range and isn’t close to the edge of being too soft when it is new (see post #2 , in which case you’d need to do a bit of detective work.
Whenever someone comments about a mattress having a sag or a “hammock feeling” for a new mattress, I always suggest a “ground up” assessment to make sure that there is nothing under the mattress that may be contributing to the issue. The first thing I would check is if somehow the foundation bends under the weight of the mattress and the people sleeping on it. The spacing between slats seems adequate but from your description, I am not able to determine if the foundation has appropriate center support especially for a king mattress. To eliminate the foundation as the problem I’d place the mattress on the floor and see if it makes any difference. If it doesn’t make any difference at all then the chances are it’s your mattress. If it does make some difference then the chances are it would be your support system. A good support system should provide similar support under a mattress as the floor. Without proper support, the bed will sink and soften and not perform as designed.
I would also call the seller to make sure that the foundation you have meets their minimum requirements. I would not assume that your current foundation is compatible with your new mattress. A 9" all-latex mattress is significantly heavier and more “active” than most other mattress types. Pairing an improper foundation or frame will void the warranty and any comfort adjustment terms.
You may also want to eliminate the possibility of any defective layers by checking each of the latex layers by putting them (individual layers) on the floor and then either running a string from edge to edge or use a straight edge (such as a broom handle) across the layers and then measuring the depth of any visible impression from the bottom of the straight edge or from the string. While it would be unusual … if either of your latex layers is defective and there are visible impressions that are deeper than they should be then I would certainly talk to the seller about a warranty claim.
If the mattress behaves the same both on the floor and on top of the foundation then the issue is most likely a comfort issue (unless any of the latex layers are defective). As you have several layers available from your two twins, I would switch some of the layers around and see which comfort/support configuration works best for one individual sleeper at a time. (Hopefully, you have some seeping alternatives available for the other sleeper)
Let us know if you managed to contact the seller and the results of any of the experiments suggested above.
Phoenix
Thanks for the notes.
We were contacted by the seller and we explained our situation, even with the lack of support with the mattresses directly on a solid hardwood floor. We will be returning the mattress…now the fun of repackaging.
Did you end up finding a solution to your problem? If you returned the mattress, what did you replace it with?