This is an all-latex mattress from Ikea, mostly natural with a bit of synthetic latex mixed in. We got it for our 9 yo son because we heard so many nice things about latex and this was the least expensive we could find that also had all natural materials (except the bit of synthetic latex in it).
What we learned:
Latex mattresses can be horribly heavy even if it’s just a full size. I don’t even want to think what kind of giants would be needed to move a king. Plus the trouble is they don’t sit up well on their own, but tend to collapse. So they are very difficult to move.
This particular latex mattress is a bit too much on the firm side even though I could swear it felt cushier/softer when we tried it in the store. Europeans are used to that level of hardness but after 14 years in the US, I became quite Americanized and I realized i prefer more cush and fluff now. So does our son…but oh, well.
Maybe it’s because this one hasn’t been broken in and the one on display at the store had been tried by many people?
I do see a pillow topper in the future of this mattress.
I also understood the Dunlop type of latex as opposed to Talalay makes it firmer.
Although IKEA says it is all natural (minus the bit of synthetic latex) and that it was NOT treated with any chemicals or FR-s (they used wool to pass the FR requirement), when we took it out of the plastic it smelled like a huge chemical factory. Maybe it’s because it had been encased in that plastic cover in storage? Windows are open now and fans are on …but it still makes me wonder whether IKEA is lying.
I also wish the cover (which has a zipper and can theoretically be taken off to wash) would fit perfectly tight and snug on the latex so you can get that coin bouncing off the mattress feeling. This one is a tad loose; but once you top it with pad, sheet and the like, this is not relevant or visible anymore.
Overall OK, but it was probably an overbuy for our 9 yo and I now feel we should have gone with an economy inner spring from mygreenmatress.com.
Trouble is it is hard, hard, hard to order blind.
We just learned that we surely don’t want an ALL latex mattress for our king (which will be two Twin XL-s).
A very well-built innerspring (not that you can get any guarantee in this sense) with maybe a little layer of talalay latex on top is the way to go.
We are thinking of the Everlast from the Quality Sleep Shop.
If anyone has had any experience with this mattress, I would greatly appreciate any kind of feedback!
This will be a blind order ,significantly more expensive than our son’s, and it sure is hard to pull the trigger.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feedback about the Morgangava … I appreciate it. I think you may be the first one to have written about it since it recently replaced the very similar Sultan Edsele.
I think that anyone that owns a latex mattress can relate to your comments about how heavy and floppy latex is.
[quote]Maybe it’s because this one hasn’t been broken in and the one on display at the store had been tried by many people?
I do see a pillow topper in the future of this mattress.
I also understood the Dunlop type of latex as opposed to Talalay makes it firmer.[/quote]
It will soften and break in a little but latex softens much more slowly than other types of foam. There is a wide range of firmness levels with both Dunlop and Talalay and the Ikea mattresses use Mountaintop Foams C3 latex (see here) which is in the firmer side of their firmness range. There are certainly softer versions of Dunlop but as you mentioned you can always add a topper if you need to.
While anything can have some initial smell including latex (which can sometimes be quite strong initially) … they are telling the truth and all the latex that Mountaintop Foam makes (who supplies Ikea) is Oeko-Tex tested for harmful substances and VOC’s so there isn’t anything harmful in the smell.
Thank you for your comments, Phoenix. I guess we are trying to get used to the purchase and decide whether it was the right one - given its purpose (our 9 yo’s bed.).
Most children probably sleep on way less expensive, non-latex mattresses, so we feel it might have been a bit of an overkill; but we really wanted this one to last him a long time, to be natural (no stifling, clammy synthetics), and we were also hoping the latex would give him that comfy plush - which this one is not exactly doing, given its firmness.
The only reason we didn’t go with the less expensive, basic innerspring from mygreenmattress.com is because I was afraid it might be too firm (as the basic doesn’t have any latex layer), plus I was also a bit uncomfortable with not being able to try it.
Well…he ended up with a firm mattress anyway, very heavy, plus about 200$ extra. Oh, well.
Do you happen to know of a good source for a natural mattress topper (no synthetic foam ) that will give it that plush, comfy feeling?
Now that I saw that a mattress purchase can turn out less than perfect EVEN WHEN you try it out in the store, I am even more nervous about proceeding with ours and buying untried.
If it were up to me, I would return the Morgongava to IKEA and get the “two-sided-pure-echo-organic-cotton-natural-mattress” from mygreenmattress.com instead; but my husband won’t hear of dragging it back down the stairs, putting it into a U-Haul and taking it back. He says it is fine the way it is and when we need to move it again, we will have movers. :lol: Poor things.
And that’s just for a full! The thought of moving a queen, let along king size all-latex mattresses, gives me the creeps.
The Morgongava would certainly be on the firmer side of the range for most people although heavier body types would probably feel it was softer or in some cases even too soft than those who are lighter or children.
I would be tempted to give it a little time because a mattress that is too soft may not be the best choice for kids and he may find that it works well once he gets used to a different type of sleeping surface but if you decide that you want to add a little extra softness then post #2 here and the topper guidelines it links to should be helpful and it also links to the topper and component post here which includes some of the better sources for toppers that I’m aware of.
I’m not personally familiar with this mattress but I would guess that it may be even firmer than the mattress you purchased. A full size is also more costly than the Morgongava by over $350. Are you sure you mean My Organic Mattress and not My Green Mattress (which is one of the members of this site)?
Again I’m guessing you mean My Green Mattress? I don’t see a Pure Echo on the My Organic Mattress site.
Then again, if you think this basic inner spring might have been even firmer than the Morgongava - which is exactly what I feared - then it was the right decision, because the Morgo. is just about as firm as anyone in our family will go with.
Our son didn’t complain, he said it feels fine - but I remember when he slept on a mattress away on vacation and he raved about how soft and cushy it was, and told us not to get him a hard bed when we decide to get a new one.
Now he says he likes the Morgongava but I don’t think he’s paying much attention to “sleep stuff” anyway; he’d much rather talk about what else he built with his Legos.
He’s a skinny child so he won’t feel much “cushy” from that latex just by weighing on it, that’s for sure
Thank you for the post on mattress toppers, Phoenix, we will definitely investigate!
It’s firm. Not unbearably firm - but clearly firm.
Scale of 1-10 (1 very soft, 10 very firm)?
I would say a 7.
I didn’t sleep on it, only my two kids slept on it for the first time last night (they HAD to have a “sleepover” with the new bed and all).
Nobody complained in the morning about it being too hard, but neither did they say, “mom, I slept heavenly”.
Then again, they are 6 and 8, both light, they would sleep fine even on a rock. Plus, they just don’t care that much about sleep technicalities.I do plan on sleeping on it this week-end myself.
I want to get something to set on top of it anyway…I just don’t know what yet, except that it must be natural and breathable (no stifling, clammy synthetics like polyester).
I thought about having just a very plush mattress pad but 99% of those are filled with polyester and the very rare ones filled with cotton (such as the one Vermont Country Stores carries) are not that plushy.
To add a latex mattress topper seems kind of pointless since the mattress itself is latex. I am not sure a softer Talalay latex would be plush enough.
A feather bed? Kind of pricy and I think it might flatten fast anyway. After all, how can feather that you sit on and press all the time stay plush for long enough?
If anyone knows of a very plush mattress pad that is filled with something other than polyester (or maybe just a bit of that mixed with cotton), I would appreciate any clues.
It seems to me that when people want that cushy, plush, slightly “sink in” feeling in their comfort layers at the top - the best material to achieve this is some kind of foam (some better than others).
The trouble for me is that foam doesn’t breathe well and it heats you up.
Sure, it can be done - after all this is just a basic, low profile mattress made of a big piece of latex, and based on the way it looks and acts, it feels as if it could last decades.
But for us, adding more layers just to make it plushier kind of adds to the price of the bed, which is already higher than what we wanted to spend for a 9 yo’s bed. Then again, he will have it for at least the next 10 years as we don’t jump to change mattresses as soon as recommendations dictate. I just try to protect and maintain them really well.
An adult can play with layers on this mattress though.
The reason for adding a topper (or to use multiple layers of the same material in a mattress) is to change the feel and performance so it’s a better match for someone in terms of PPP. There are many latex mattresses that use multiple layers of the same material for this reason and it certainly wouldn’t be pointless if some additional softness or pressure relief was important. Having said that … given the feedback you’ve had from your kids so far I would hesitate to make any changes. A softer sleeping surface may not be in their best interests (just like using too much sugar in a diet may be something they would be attracted to or “like” but may not be in their best interests).
Foam toppers (either memory foam, polyfoam, or latex foam) in a suitable thickness and softness (lower ILD) would all add additional softness and additional pressure relief that would generally be more effective than fibers which tend to compress and become firmer as they pack down.
There are also many variables that work together to affect the sleeping temperature of a mattress outside of just the type of foam that is used although latex foam is generally more breathable than polyfoam which in turn tends to be more breathable than memory foam so the type of foam you use can certainly make a difference. There is more about the many factors that work together to affect the sleeping temperature of a mattress (including the softness of the mattress, the type of cover and quilting, any mattress protector or mattress pad you use, your sheets and bedding, and the bedclothes you wear) in post #2 here and the posts it links to and as you can see the type and breathability of the upper layers of foam are only one of the variables involved.
I agree with Phoenix, I wouldn’t be so quick to add a topper just yet but if you decide later that you want to go that direction there are a lot of great options. You could do a 2-3" layer of soft latex in a cover, you could get a thick wool topper, you could look at memory foam toppers, there is even a topper called a lanoodle that is similar to a shredded latex pillow that you could consider.
You are probably right that we need to wait on the topper for now. We are in no hurry to add it with all of the upcoming expenses of our own bed…especially now that, go figure, I want to have all natural bedding this time.
No polyester mattress pad, no polyester comforter - only cotton, silk or wool allowed in that bed.
I know that in the not so distant past, doctors used to recommend sleeping on firm. Now they say about medium.
Growing up, I remember my grandmother’s bed being so comfortable, but it was clearly on the firmer side, actually pretty close to this Morgongava.
Perhaps it is better for children’s development to sleep on somewhat firmer mattress than a fluff and puff, “sink in” surface.
The sugar analogy makes a lot of sense.
[quote]Perhaps it is better for children’s development to sleep on somewhat firmer mattress than a fluff and puff, “sink in” surface.
The sugar analogy makes a lot of sense.[/quote]
Just wanted to add that I am being driven crazy by the smell of this mattress.
We set it up right away after taking it out of its package as we had no place to let it sit and air, plus our son didn’t have a bed anymore so he was looking forward to not sleeping on an air mattress anymore.
However, I did let it sit without any covers until the evening, with fans on and windows open, and then I took off the bedding and did the same thing for 2-3 days in a row. It hardly helped.
It still smells pretty badly and I wonder how long it will take until the smell will dissipate. Never mind that I can’t fathom what could smell so badly if the latex is almost all natural, only a little synthetic in it, and no harmful Fr-s - supposedly.
We were convinced IKEA had a return policy on mattresses but it turns out there is only an exchange policy, no returns. So buyer, beware. Had we been aware of this “little detail”, we would not have gone with them.
I wonder whether all of that Mountaintop latex that IKEA uses smells equally badly at first - or it’s just this IKEA mattress.
If
anyone has any other ideas as to what I should do to get rid of that new latex mattress smell, I would appreciate it.
Otherwise, the mattress is OK. It would still be a little too firm for me, but it’s probably the right kind of surface for a child to grow on.
Some people really don’t like the smell of natural rubber and unfortunately some people are also much more sensitive to certain smells than others. The smell of natural rubber … like any natural material … can also vary from batch to batch as well. There is more about the smell of different types of latex in post #2 here and the smell of Dunlop can be a little stronger and more persistant than Talalay but it will certainly dissipate over time. There is also more in post #3 here that includes some suggestions that may be helpful as well. The smell of your mattress will diminish over the course of the first few weeks and if you visit Ikea and “stick your nose” in a Morgongava that has been on the floor for a few months you will see that the smell is greatly reduced to levels that most people wouldn’t notice which is where you will eventually be as well.
I agree that it’s always important to make sure that you are aware of and are comfortable with any return or exchange policy before buying a mattress and this is good advice for any mattress purchase.
We certainly didn’t notice any smell in the floor display Morgongava we tried at an Ikea store before purchasing.
I do hope it goes away fast as I hate the thought of my son sleeping in that smell.
Thing is it hardly smells like anything natural. It is a very chemical-ish smell but maybe my sensitivity to chemicals including the thought of chemicals being harmful - amplifies the whole thing.
One of the reasons we didn’t want to go with a foam/ polyfoam type mattress was exactly because we wanted to avoid chemical smells. I had read natural latex doesn’t smell - but I was obviously wrong.
I am planning on removing all bedding again tomorrow and just spread baking soda all over the mattress, let it sit like this all day, and then vacuum it off in the evening.
Would that be a no-no, before I do anything stupid?
Does your mattress still smell? I bought one 3 days ago and the smell is unbearable! I bought a Sultan Edsele mattress 2-3 years ago, which I figured was practically the same, and it had absolutely no smell to it. This Morgongava one smells terrible and it does not seem to be improving with time. I would like to know how yours turned out before I go and exchange it.
Your mattress is still very new so it’s very likely that over the course of the next few weeks the smell of your mattress will diminish to a level that most people would be comfortable with. Like any natural material though the smell can vary from batch to batch and it will also depend on how long it’s been since the latex was manufactured and of course some people are also much more sensitive to certain smells than others. The latex in the Morgongava is exactly the same type and blend of latex and manufactured by the same company (Mountaintop Foam) as the latex that was in your Edsele and the latex has been certified by Oeko-Tex so at least you can have some confidence that the smell isn’t harmful but I know that doesn’t really help much if the smell is offensive to you.
You’ve probably read this since it’s in the same thread as you are posting in but some of the information and links in post #15 here may also be helpful.
I hope the smell of your Morgongava will reduce to a level you are comfortable with soon and I also hope you have the chance to update us about what happens.
