Post #2 here includes links to most of the better topics and forum posts about mattresses and children and include more information about many good options for children (including Spindle which would certainly make a good choice).
First off, love the site. Very informative. I had been emailing Jeff Scheuer from the Beducation YouTube videos and he steered me to this site. Very honest and knowledgeable guy by the way. Buy anyhow, I live in the Louisville Ky area and was wondering if you know of any good retailers or manufacturers in my area. I know about Bowles and Bragada. Have never laid on either. I have looked at the main brands (sealy, serta, tempurpedic etc) and some other brands such as Ashley and Denver mattress (furniture row). Any help you can give would be great. Not real high on the all foam beds. have found they are usually too firm or too soft. Have found that i tend to lean towards the so-called hybrid mattresses. Have found them to be the most comfortable to myself as well as my wife. Also plan on purchasing an adjustable base. Any help there would also be appreciated. One more note, have you had any experience with the site mattressquote.com?
As you may know I think very highly of Mattress-to-go and Jeff and he is one of the most knowledgeable retailers in the industry (see the first part of post #4 here).
The better options or possibilities Iām aware of in and around the Louisville area (subject to the āvalueā guidelines here) are listed in post #3 here.
I donāt have any personal experience with them no but they appear to focused on finding ābest priceā quotes for many of the major brands or mainstream mattresses which are carried in a large number of stores and which I would tend to avoid anyway (see the guidelines here). While this could work well for mainstream brands ā¦ most of the better quality/value mattresses are only available locally or regionally and donāt have a large number of retailers that carry them that would be registered on the site. In the case of factory direct manufacturers they would only be available at a specific location or at company stores.
I just wanted to say thank you so much for all of the information that you have here. This coupled with sleeplikethedead.com has been a huge help in understanding what I want.
Iāve needed a new mattress for about 2 years, and it has finally come time to get one. I think I have most of what I want figured out, but Iād like to ask a few more questions before I pull the trigger.
Iāve gotten as far as deciding that I think I want a memory foam mattress. I am only 26, but have multiple issues in my upper and lower back, to include a bulging disc in my lower back. I used to enjoy sleeping, but for the past probably about 5 years, I havenāt at all, and I have a feeling it is because I cannot get the alignment nor support that I need when I am sleeping. I can sleep for 10 hours and wake up feeling like I did before I went to sleep. I have laid on various memory foam mattresses (although havenāt slept a full night) and they immediately feel comfortable to me. Also, everyone I know who has one (aside from 1 friend who accidentally bought the incorrect firmness) absolutely loves them.
I already know as much to stay away from the ultra premium retailers, such as tempur pedic, which I am good with as I usually donāt agree with charging and exorbitant amount for items that can be made of the same quality for a lot less. My concern is that I feel like I am overwhelmed with information and there are so many different options, I donāt even know where to start with narrowing all of them down.
I know there is no way you can recommend one single brand or specific mattress, but I am wondering, with your expertise, if you could help me narrow it down some.
This is what I think I know so far;
I am an extremely warm sleeper, and I hear memory foam is extremely warm. Whatever I get HAS to have some kind of heat dissipation assistance. From what I understand, they use some form of gel infusion? Iāve noticed not all mem foam mattresses have that. This is probably one of the most important factors because I cannot sleep when I am hot. I can be in shorts under a light sheet, and my girlfriend has to be be bundled up under a blanket and 2 comforters, and I am still too warm sometimes. Is there any specific retailer that you have seen that excelās in this area?
I am a side sleeper 80-90% of the time, but would like to be able to sleep on my back as I know that is the most neutral position you can be. From what I gather from this, it seems I need a medium to medium-firm mattress, is that correct?
Iāve seen mem foam mattresses advertised as being able to alter the layers, or rather, switch them around. This seems like it would be an ineffective thing to have as I would assume that the central and lower layers would be quite a bit more firm, but I really donāt know. Is having a mattress that I can rearrange the layers something you suggest? I would rather be able to just set it up and forget about it. Iām terrible about being able to decide what I want, and it will probably just drive me crazy.
I donāt mind purchasing from an online retailer, and honestly may even prefer it due to the various ways I can pay for it. In the past when I looked, I had it down to bed in a box and Brooklyn bedding. Would you recommend one over the other, or would you have any otherās you would recommend?
In the past, I have read that a general rule of thumb is that the higher the density, the higher the qualityā¦ so in theory, try to stay away from <3 lb. memory foam mattresses, so I planned on not going anything lower than 3.5-4. Is this kind of a standard rule to go by?
My budget for this bed is about $2,000, and I am hoping that I can get the mattress, the base, a really good waterproof cover, and possibly a really good memory foam pillow. Based off of this, do you think I am in the ballpark that I can get something of decent quality? Would it make a huge difference if I lowered my expectations slightly and raised my budget to, say, $2,500? I know in the industry I work in, changing the purchase price by just a little can make a huge difference in what you can get in the end.
I know I will have more questions, but I hope I am not asking too much at this point. Thank you so much for your help!
I switched your post to a topic of your own so your questions donāt get buried in a more general topic.
Hopefully youāve had a chance to read the mattress shopping tutorial which is the first post in the topic you originally posted in and has all the basic information, steps, and guidelines that can help you make the best possible choice ā¦ and know how and why to avoid the worst ones. Your best chance of success is to follow the steps and the information there one step at a time.
Memory foam (or gel memory foam) in general will tend to be warmer than other types of mattresses but there there is more information in post #6 here about some of the ways that can help cool down memory foam a little that can give you some sense of what to look for.
There are also no standardized firmness ratings between manufacturers so a mattress that is rated as āmedium firmā with one manufacturer may be rated as a āmediumā or a āfirmā by another manufacturer. Firmness is also very subjective and relative to each person so what feels too soft for one person can feel too firm for someone else (or vice versa) depending on their body type, sleeping positions, and preferences and sensitivities. The only way to know how firm or soft a mattress feels for you would be based on your own personal testing or sleeping experience regardless of how anyone else or any manufacturer may rate it. Only you can feel what you feel on a mattress (see mattress firmness/comfort levels in post #2 here). I would avoid trying to predict which firmness level will work best for you based on ātheoryā and use your own personal testing and what your body tells you to make the best possible choice.
There is more about the most reliable ways to choose a mattress that is the most suitable "match for you in terms of PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and Personal preferences) either locally or online in post #2 here that can help you make the best possible choice and help you identify and minimize the risks involved in making a choice that turns out not to be as suitable as you hoped for.
In general a component memory foam mattress would allow you to rearrange either the memory foam layers (if there is more than one) or the deeper support and transition layers (which are usually polyfoam) so you could adjust either the comfort or the support of the mattress. It normally wouldnāt be a good idea to use the memory foam in the deeper layers or the polyfoam in the upper layers. They can be a good option for those who need to do some fine tuning to their mattress but for some people the process of rearranging the layers would be more uncertain or time consuming than they would prefer. A choice between a component mattress (which is much less common with memory foam mattresses than it is with latex) is really a part of your own personal value equation and there isnāt any ābetter or worseā choice between them although based on your comments it sounds like your preferences would be a āfinishedā mattress.
While itās not really necessary to know this ā¦ if you are interested there is more about primary or ādeepā support and secondary or āsurfaceā support and their relationship to firmness and pressure relief and the ārolesā of different layers in a mattress in post #2 here and in post #4 here that may also be helpful in clarifying the difference between āsupportā and āpressure reliefā and āfeelā.
Brooklyn Bedding is a member of this site which means that I think very highly of them and I believe they compete well with the best in the industry in terms of their quality, value, service, and transparency.
I would be very cautious with Bedinabox or any mattress that uses more than āabout an inch or soā of lower density 3 lb memory foam. There are more comments about Bedinabox in post #2 here.
The tutorial post includes a link to the better online memory foam options Iām aware of (in the optional online step) and if you let me know your city or zip code Iād be happy to let you know about any of the better options or possibilities Iām aware of in your area.
The density of memory foam is the single biggest factor in its durability and higher density memory foams are more durable than lower density memory foams. Density has less to do with the properties of a memory foam material though and there is more about the many different properties of different types of memory foam in post #9 here and post #8 here.
You can see the foam density guidelines I would suggest in post #4 here and in general I would tend to avoid anything more than about an inch or so of memory foam that was less than about 4 lb density (not less than 3 lb density).
A $2000 budget certainly sounds reasonable to me and there are many good quality memory foam mattresses that are available in this budget range (although you didnāt mention the size you were looking for which can have a significant effect on the price of a mattress). You may also need a good foundation if you donāt have one that is suitable already. If you find and test a mattress in a little higher budget range and it is a significantly better match for you in terms of PPP compared to all the lower budget mattresses that you tried then I would certainly consider it but only if you can identify a specific reason that itās better that would be enough to justify the higher cost.
Hello Phoenix and all. Itās been almost a year since I purchased my Pure Bliss Latex āBeautifulā mattress with an adjustable frame and I must say I sleep as well now as I did the first night. It did take a couple months to, ābreak inā to the point I recall in the store model, (as far as softness), but still provides the needed support for my ābadā back. When Iāve tweeked my back or over done it, I head to the bed for the support I need and rest to allow my back to recover, (which it does by the next morning). It still amazes me that I spent years on āDiscountā mattresses and paid a chiropractor big bucks to realign my back, when all I needed was a quality mattress fitted to my PPP. (I havenāt needed the chiropractor since getting the āBeautifulā)
Thanks again for the information I needed to find the right mattress for me.
AND... for all those out there starting or in the process of finding their 'dream bed', IT CAN BE DONE! Don't let the amount of information given here to overwhelm you, because it is all accurate and complete. Take your time to 'understand' the information, and have patience when testing the beds you've narrowed your choices down to. (Be wary of salesmen that push to purchase before you've completed your evaluation, or use the line, "if you don't like it, we'll take it back"). You will find your dream bed as I have.
Thanks for taking the time to return and share your comments and feedback after a year ā¦ it always great to read some longer term feedback and I appreciate it
I also appreciate your encouragement to others that are still going through what can sometimes be a difficult and frustrating process!
I saw this thread and had to pop in to take a look. I havenāt been to Mattress Mart, but I have been to OMF and I like their āChipotle-styleā approach to doing businessābuild up the pieces parts the way you like them. Their choices arenāt overwhelming and the division between products is clear, and their pricing seems fair.
Iām going to take a much closer look at their latex mattress, but I guess based on your narrative Iāll head to Mattress Mart as well. Thanks for the tips.
Phoenix, you said something very important:
OMF has their latex mattress on both a standard box spring as well as on an adjustable base, and youāre 100% correctāthey feel different, even with a quick check in the store.
(Do you give actual degrees for the graduate education you provide here? )
If anything, this is what turns me off of places like Mattress Mart. I donāt want to go in facing a used car deal and a two hour dance. Show me an honest price, and letās be done with it.
For the record, right now OMF has their latex mattress, twin XL, on an S-Cape base (with wireless and massage!), for $2000. So a king is $4000. All with no wheeling and dealing and fake prices brought down by āremoving the two $129 pillowsā (I swear, the Mattress Firm guy at the home and garden show was so slimy I had to take a shower when I left him).
I couldnāt agree with you more and I would love to see an industry where ānegotiationā didnāt play a role in how much you pay (or in most cases how much you overpay) for a mattress. While there are still many smaller local or regional manufacturers across the country that donāt play these games and have good value at their regular prices every day of the year and if they do have a sale it is with a more reasonable discount and for legitimate reasons (and OMF is one of these) ā¦ it would really be a breath fresh air if the whole industry worked that way. One of the tipoffs for a store that uses these types of tactics is a retailer or even a factory direct manufacturer that carries many mainstream mattresses on their floor (Sealy, Simmons, Serta et al).
Thanks for taking the time to share your comments as well.
Maybe I should make a certificate that can be downloaded at the end of the tutorial that the members here can take into a āsuspectā store that says ādonāt mess with me ā¦ I am a graduate of The Mattress Underground and I may know more about mattresses than you doā
I have read your posts and I was hoping you could help me. I am having a lot of trouble deciding what mattress is good for me. I had been sleeping on a medium firm IKEA mattress for a few years and was having discomfort in my hip area which was causing me to wake up early so i decided to purchase a new mattress. Recently I purchased a Simmons Beautyrest Worldclass Imperial Estate mattress from sleep country. This was a really soft mattress. However, I started having neck pain and would wake up early in the morning. I found this mattress felt better for my hip though than the firmer IKEA mattress I had. I was still waking up early in the morning because the mattress would get too hot at night because of me sinking in the softness. So I exchanged my mattress and got Sealy Optimum Radiance Gold mattress and have been sleeping on it for about a month. This is a demo model. In the beginning I was able to sleep well for about a week. However for the past few weeks I have been waking up at 5 or 6am with pain in the middle of my back or lower back iām not sure. I try sleeping in different position and putting pillows in between my knees but it doesnt help. Do you think this could be caused by the mattress? The pain goes away slowly after i get up and walk around for a while. I called sleep country and they are going to let me exchange my mattress but I just donāt know what to get any more. Do you think a soft mattress would be better or a firm one? From my observation a soft mattress would feel better for my hip. The store salesperson said if i want a soft mattress the only options they have are the Sealy Optimum Elation Gold, iComfort Epic and Kingsdown Kennedy. Please help me. I really need help deciding what mattress to purchase. Thank you.
I switched your post to your own topic so it wouldnāt get mixed in with a more general topic.
Itās certainly possible that your mattress is too soft which would be a common cause of lower back pain that goes away after you get up but of course I canāt know for certain.
Only you can feel what you feel on a mattress and there are too many unknowns, variables, and personal preferences involved for anyone to be able to suggest a specific mattress based on specs (either yours or a mattress), health conditions, individual circumstances, or ātheory at a distanceā (see mattress firmness/comfort levels in post #2 here). Your best chance of success in choosing the most suitable mattress will be to use the testing guidelines in step 4 of the mattress shopping tutorial.
Unfortunately, and like many of the members here that have been in a similar situation, you are in a somewhat difficult position where you need to exchange a mattress at a store that I would normally suggest avoiding and where there may not be any particularly good quality/value options available to you.
There are some suggestions and ideas in post #2 here about the two main strategies that you can use that can help you make the best of a difficult situation. There is also more in post #13 here about the most important parts of the āvalueā of a mattress purchase or exchange that may be helpful as well.
I wrote a long reply to this thread once, and it disappeared. I donāt know what happened to it.
I will try to sum up what I had written
I am a male, approximately 6ā tall, 200 lbs. My zip is 89081, and I know there are a few mattress retailers around me, but I havenāt been to any as of yet. Looking to get a California king sized bed.
I did some research about 4 months ago, and did read through the mattress buying guide fully. When I created this thread, I was going almost off memory, other than the skim that I did of that thread before hand. I plan on fully revisiting that thread, and your reply in this one when I have some time this weekend.
I thought I had remembered Brooklyn Bedding as being one of your recommended retailers from last time I was doing research. I notice that they have a few different options for cooling, and I was wondering if you had a personal thought on one vs the other (cool vs. pure cool.) The almost $600 price difference (in Cali King) from one to the other is pretty hefty, but if you have confidence that it is truly functional, I would not hesitate to buy the more expensive one.
I did get a chance to read your post about comparing the different techniques of cool gel vs. other cooling (and also the different mixtures and types of gels, etc.) I guess the most I am worried about is just getting it narrowed down to a few good ones so I can make a relatively informed decision, but hopefully that will happen this weekend when I go shopping.
Thanks again for your help. I am sure I will have more questions and thoughts, but I will try to refrain from asking too many stupid questions before I do some more reading and research this weekend.
I feel your pain and I canāt count the number of times that this has happened to me over the years on many different forums. The problem is that the ones that ādisappearā are always the best ones that took the longest to write. Itās usually the result of some kind of temporary disconnect from the internet leading to a session timeout which logs you out of the forum (this is common to forum software after a certain period of inactivity) and then when you go to post ā¦ poof. Iāve learned over the years to highlight and copy the post before clicking submit just in case but it always seems that the few times I forget is exactly when murphys law kicks in and another long post disappears into the ether. :dry:
You can see some information about the PureCoolmemoryfoamhere.Asyoucanseehttps://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/0https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/1https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/2https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/3https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/4https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/5https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/6https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/7https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/8https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/925002/Peterson-PacificUrethanesTechnologyDevelopment2013.pdf]PureCool0conductivegel,andphasechangegel)andhttps://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/0https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/1https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/2https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/3https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/4https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/5https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/6https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/7https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/8https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/9ofmemoryfoamandisamorehttps://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/0https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/1https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/2https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/3https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/4https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/5https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/6https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/7https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/8personalexperiencewitheitherofthemsohttps://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/0https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/1https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/2https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/3https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/4https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/5https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/6https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/7ofinformationabouthowtheywouldcomparehttps://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/0https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/1https://uploads.mattressunderground.com/outside/2
Youāre correct that Brooklyn Bedding is one of the members here which means that I think very highly of them and I believe they compete well with the best in the industry in terms of their quality, value, service, and transparency.
While I may not always be the best source of information about some of the mattresses that are mentioned on the site (in most cases a knowledgeable manufacturer or retailer will know more about their own mattresses than I do) ā¦ Iām always happy to answer any questions that I can and IMO the only āstupidā questions are the ones that arenāt asked
I believe what happened is I actually wrote the reply the night before and forgot to submit it. I submitted it the next day, but I think by that time it had already auto-logged me out. I should have copied it just in case, but the thought didnāt even cross my mind.
Hearing that the pure cool memory foam uses more technology than just the cooling gel makes me excited about it all over again. The cooling gel was the first ācoolā technology that I had heard of for memory foam, and the only one I knew about until recently. Hearing about all the new ones made me stress all over again, as it was āone more thingā I had to realize now.
I am hoping this weekend I have time to go fall asleep on a couple of mattresses. Based on what you are saying, I feel pretty confident on Brooklyn Bedding, and also on which one I want. I almost want to order it now, but I know I DEFINITELY need to go lay on some beds to make sure It is good for my P-P-P. The other thing that is nice is that I know most every place will have tempurpedic beds in stock, and BB actually has good ācomparisonā models, so I can at least get an idea of what I will be getting. Although, for what its worth, I may try and shop around a little as the pure cool is definitely a little above and beyond my budget, but in the end I have a feeling that it will still be worth it.
Thanks again for all of your help! I really appreciate it.
I just wanted to thank you for the massive amounts of information. Iāve been reading through your mattress forums and dream shopping for a mattress. Iām a new mom, and my husband and I have slept on a coil spring queen mattress that I believe my grandmother owned previously (and sheās been gone for 17 years). With the new baby, we need more room. But quite frankly, I need a good nightās sleep. My husband disagreed with the āaināt broke, donāt fix itā attitude.
Over the last month, Iāve managed to convince him that itās time. However, he gave me a ridiculously low budget thinking I wouldnāt be successful. Little did he know, I was prepared and informed.
With the help of your blog and forum, I am about to purchase from Dream Foam. Iāve developed a retail crush on this company after reading all the reviews (literally, like every review) and threads. For now, Iāve decided on the 11" pillow top with big dreams of a upgrading in a few years. Iām so very excited! Without your site, we would have gone to a super center for a smelly Japanese boxed mattress.