Help choosing a latex mattress

[phoenix]

Hi Beedman,

Welcome to the site

Your questions really come down to the three most important parts of the value of a mattress purchase (see post #13 here).

The first is the suitability of a mattress in terms of PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and Personal preferences).

The second is the quality and durability of a mattress based on the materials that are inside it.

Finally the third is the value of a mattress which is relative to how it compares to your other finalists based on all the parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you.

Firstly, my main issue is choosing a firmness. I don’t drive which makes it far more difficult to attempt to find and try latex mattresses out to determine what I find comfortable. I haven’t slept on many mattresses in my life, about all I know is that my current mattress is not comfortable to me. It’s a spring mattress and I can sometimes feel the springs if I’m lying on my side. My girlfriend and I both mainly sleep on our stomachs I think, although I regularly wake up during the night (easily 6+ times a night, which can’t be healthy) to roll over and go back to sleep, so I basically switch between my stomach, back, and side multiple times in any given night. My girlfriend probably wakes up a few times too but not as much. So yeah, any tips or strategies to choosing a firmness would be appreciated.

This is all about the suitability of a mattress and there are really only two ways to choose a mattress in terms of PPP. The first is based on your own careful testing and personal experience (hopefully using the testing guidelines in the mattress shopping tutorial). When you can’t test a mattress in person then the alternative is a more detailed conversation on the phone with a knowledgeable and experienced manufacturer that can help “talk you through” the options they have available that would have the best chance of success based on the “averages” of other customers that are similar to you (see mattress firmness/comfort levels in post #2 here).

If you have done some local testing on different types of mattresses and materials with different firmness levels and you have a good sense of the types of mattresses and materials that you tend to prefer then of course this is all information that you can provide them that can help them to help you make a better choice. When you aren’t confident that your choice will be suitable for you then the options you have after a purchase to make changes to a mattress by rearranging or exchanging layers (for a mattress where this is possible), having a manufacturer open up the mattress and change some of the layers (which is a service provided by some local manufacturers), by adding a topper (if the mattress is too firm), Exchanging it for another mattress (if there are other good options available in different firmness levels), or to return the mattress for a refund and any costs involved in any of these options would reduce the risk of an online purchase and would normally become a much more important part of the “value” of your purchase.

Secondly, how do I know if a company is reputable or if a mattress is of good quality?

This is about the durability of a mattress. Outside of PPP … a mattress is only as good as it’s construction and the quality of the materials inside it regardless of the name of the manufacturer. Since you can’t “feel” the quality or durability of the materials in a mattress (low quality and less durable materials can feel the same as higher quality and more durable materials when they are new … they just don’t maintain their original properties for as long) … the only way to know the quality of a mattress and whether it has any weak links in its design or materials that would have a significant effect on durability or the useful life of a mattress relative to a specific person is to make sure that you know the type and quality of all the materials, layers, and components inside it (see this article).

I’ve heard good things about Brooklyn Bedding/Dreamfoam Bedding, so that leads into a follow up question:

Sites reselling Dreamfoam Bedding Ultimate Dreams mattresses. For example: this one is advertised as $500 (plus shipping) for a full (the size I’m interested in) which is slightly cheaper than buying from Dreamfoam Bedding’s website directly and significantly cheaper than Dreamfoam Bedding via Amazon.

And then there are others: example, example which seem quite cheap which leads me to question the quality and if they are from a reputable source (which may require contacting the companies; the listing aren’t super informative).

Once you are confident in the suitability of a mattress either based on your local testing or a more detailed conversation with a knowledgeable and experienced online manufacturer or retailer (or have good options available after a purchase if you’re not sure), and you have confirmed that there are no weak links in a mattress based on the materials inside it, then you would be down to your finalists (step 4 in the mattress shopping tutorial) and you would be making a choice between “good and good”. If at this point there are no clear winners between them based on suitability of the mattress or the quality/durability of the materials inside it then your final choice (see post #2 here) would be a matter of best judgement based on all the other objective, subjective, and intangible parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you.

just to use the different options for the Ultimate Dreams latex as an example.

If you purchase from Wayfair then the price would be $501.28 with free ground shipping (other shipping methods would add to the cost). You would be reliant on the Wayfair staff to help you choose your firmness level (who aren’t particularly knowledgeable about mattresses) and you would be covered by the Wayfair exchange policy here. Of course you could still talk with Dreamfoam and then order the mattress through Wayfair.

If you were to buy the mattress on Amazon and it was fulfilled by Dreamfoam then the price would be $499 with free shipping so it would be a little less. You would have a free pillow bonus for being a member of the forum and you would also be able to talk with them about your firmness choice. There would be no return policy.

If you were to buy the mattress on Amazon and it was fulfilled by Amazon instead of Dreamfoam then the price would be $509.76, You would be able to get faster free shipping if you were an Amazon Prime member, you would still be able to talk with them about your firmness choice, there would be no pillow bonus, and you would be covered by the Amazon large items return policy (see post #11 here).

If you were to purchase the mattress from the Dreamfoam site, then the price would be $499 (the same as Amazon Dreamfoam fulfilled) less a 10% discount which would replace the pillow bonus (see their facebook page here) for a total of $449.10. You would also be covered by their 45 day comfort guarantee which would allow you to either exchange or return the mattress for a refund (see the bottom right corner of their website).

Once you find out the specifics of the materials inside the other mattresses you linked then you can make similar comparisons based on your confidence in their suitability, the type and quality/durability of the materials inside them, and on all the other parts of your personal value equation that are most important to you.

And finally, support for a foam/latex mattress. I’ve been looking at this one but I’m wondering if the curved slats are suitable for foam or if I’d be better off finding something else.

There is more information about the types of support systems that would generally be suitable for different types of mattresses in the foundation post here but in general terms a foam mattress will generally do best on a support system that has little to no flex under the mattress. You can see my comments about the Handy Living foundation in the first part of post #11 here and it certainly wouldn’t be my first choice based on its strength, because the slats are flexible, and because with the firmer center support beam in the middle that doesn’t flex each side of the mattress may feel softer than the middle of the mattress that is over the rigid middle support beam.

Phoenix