Hello fellow sleep nerds. I’ve been agonizing somewhat over my lack of quality sleep for sometime. My wife and I are sleeping on a Serta pillow-top mattress that I’ve had since 1999. Over the past several years, I’ve gone back and forth trying to understand why I feel like garbage on most days. I have tried to examine my diet, exercise, stress levels, sleep, spirituality, and other things. I came to the realization over the past couple of years that without sleep I really struggle in all of the other areas. Over the past couple of months, I’ve discovered that the time I spend in bed has less impact than the quality of the sleep I get when I am in bed (I believe they are both important, but it doesn’t matter how long I am in bed if I’m not actually sleeping). In other words, no matter how long I am in bed, I am not sleeping well. I have been wanting to replace the old mattress for a while now, but have pushed it aside, mainly for financial reasons. Also, my wife doesn’t seem to have any issues sleeping on the Serta despite its age (probably because she weighs much less than I do at 135 lbs. with a height of 5’ 5"), which has probably caused me to re-examine all of the other areas, and push the sleep thing to the bottom of the list. Through my research, I’ve come to the conclusion that latex is the way I want to go. First, it was Savvy Rest (I still think they are probably a great company, and tried out two configurations of their Serenity for the first time this afternoon for reference, but the price of latex is relatively high even factory direct, so $3,000 plus ain’t gonna happen), then it was Essentia (until I read that there is a lot of controversy surrounding their marketing and the actual materials being used to make their mattresses, especially considering their astronomical pricing). Regardless of what I’ve liked, price has always been an issue, until I recently read about the possibility of building my own latex mattress. I’ve read the tutorials on this forum, understand the risks, and though I’m no expert, and have very little experience with different mattress configurations, I’ve decided to purchase “toppers” from mattresses247 on eBay for experimentation. I would like to share my plan with you, and get any feedback and advice that you are willing to offer to make my experiment successful, hopefully resulting in the perfect bed for us, and hopefully for far less money.
For starters, I weigh around 215 lbs. with a height of 6’ 2.5". Because it seems that everybody’s body is different, with different shapes, weight distribution and preferred sleeping positions, I really want to be able to experiment with as many different layer configurations as is necessary to find the right combination for me, but without spending a ton. As I mentioned, I tried out a Savvy Rest Serenity model this afternoon, one bed with two halves in the following two configurations from top layer to bottom: 1) soft talalay, medium dunlop, firm dunlop; and 2) medium dunlop, medium dunlop, firm dunlop. I am primarily a back and side sleeper, starting with my back, but with most of the night spent on my side, and an occasional stomach session (I wonder if I’d ever feel the need to go side or stomach if I was comfortable on my back) I greatly preferred the first configuration, as the second felt too firm for my liking, with not nearly enough cradling, and possible pressure points in my shoulder blades. However, as I was laying on the preferred configuration, I couldn’t help feeling like the transition from soft talalay to medium dunlop wasn’t as smooth as it could have been. Although I liked the cushioning of the the soft layer, it felt like I was bottoming out on the medium layer, like there could’ve been more soft, or a soft dunlop transition between the soft talalay and medium dunlop, or something with an ILD between. This is all speculation based on what I think I felt, base on what I think I understand from reading, but not based on past experience; and I was only lying on the mattress for a few minutes.
The configuration of layers I am considering purchasing from mattresses247, from BOTTOM to TOP, starts with 3" of firm dunlop (38-40 ILD) for the support layer (bottom). Next come 6 layers, to be interchanged for experimenting as a 3" transition layer, consisting of single 1", 2" and 3" layers each of both soft and medium dunlop (20 or 22-24 ILD and 30-32 ILD, respectively). The final layer (top) would be 3" of soft talalay at 22-24 ILD. If I can find it, I am considering an even softer top layer. I have sent a message to them, as there is some discrepancy with their stated ILDs, that could make the soft talalay firmer than the soft dunlop…not sure if that would work for the top two layers or not. Anyways, it’s getting late, and I could probably write a lot more, but hopefully this is enough info to get some quality feedback. Thanks.
Also, thank you, Phoenix, for such a well-informed and trustworthy site. I’ve learned a ton in a very short time frame.
Dan