Hello - I’m currently looking for a full sized mattress for our 2 1/2 year old daughter. She is transitioning from a crib to a bed and we bought her a full size bed.
She currently has a “Naturepedic Organic Cotton Lightweight Ultra 2-Stage Crib and Toddler Mattress”
I am thinking she needs a firm mattress, perhaps something like the “cushion firm” that DreamFoam advertises.
Would this be a good choice for her? She can’t really give me opinions on whether it is comfortable or not since she is still young. I’m assuming the lower density foam will be OK for her since she is still young and doesn’t weigh that much (she is all of 28 lbs right now).
I have the older DreamFoam Ultimate Dreams mattress (from Amazon) that has the higher density foam core that we bought all the way back in 2012 and we’ve been happy with it - so I figured I’d stick with the brand assuming that it is OK for a child and that the 1.8lb density foam core is OK.
I certainly wouldn’t go by the opinions of a young child about which mattress would be suitable or “comfortable” for them because they will tend to choose based on all the wrong criteria. Post #2 here and the topics it links to have more information about mattresses and children and “safe” materials including a link to some general guidelines for children in post #2 here. It also includes a number of links to the better forum posts and topics about mattress and children as well which have more information about many good options for children which are worth considering.
For younger children any mattress that uses materials that are “durable enough” that you would also consider to be “safe enough” and are in a medium to medium firm range would generally be a suitable choice for a child. The choice between different mattresses that meet these criteria would really be more of a budget and preference choice than a “better/worse” choice.
I would keep in mind that a mattress that would be “comfortable” for most adults would likely be too soft to be suitable for a child. You can also add a softer topper to any firmer childrens’ mattress when they get older and develop more adult proportions if and when they need a softer comfort layer in their “sleeping system”.
The DreamFoam Ultimate Dreams Latex uses a latex comfort layer and CertiPUR-US polyfoam which would certainly be “safe enough” for most people.
The weakest link in a mattress is generally the upper comfort layers and not the deeper support layers. The latex comfort layer is a very durable material (latex in general is the most durable of the different foam materials) and a 1.8 lb polyfoam base layer also meets the minimum guidelines that I would normally suggest for adults that aren’t in higher than average weight ranges (more than the lower 200’s or so) and would certainly be suitable for a child in terms of durability so the DreamFoam Ultimate Dreams Latex make a great quality/value choice that would be well worth considering.
I would also talk with them about which of their firmness levels would be most suitable for your child since they will know more about which of their specific firmness options would be the best"match" for your child than anyone else.
