TMU admins and experts: thank you for this great resource. As an engineer by trade, I salute your dedication to the facts, and gory details. I love gory details. I hope you do too:
Our mattress (a Sealy Posturepedic āReserveā Unity Firm on a Sealy split box spring) is 10 years old and starting to show it. So weāre in the market again, and I decided to school myself up.
I think our needs have also changed as we are a decade older as well. While I always seemed to gravitate towards a āfirmā mattress, I was biased with the notion of āfirm = supportā. Iād definitely tossed and turned on what I thought were soft mattresses, probably more accurately poorly made. Also had a preconception that āpillow topā meant ātoo softā, and āwill develop impressionsā. Our current mattress itself wasnāt bad at all, and I have to say we were usually happy to return to our bed after sleeping anywhere else.
My wife and I both side sleepers: a mix of truly side sleeping and what I call side-over (sleep on side with the top leg and body resting down and over (like half on side side/half stomach) if that makes sense. We both have BMI in the high 20s. Iāve had neck disc issues but manage with PT exercises and a cervical roll pillow tucked in my pillow case.
Iām an incredibly light sleeper, my wife not as much. After getting the disc stuff under control, the last few years though I feel as if I rotisserie sleep: regularly shifting from right side to left side, as my should/arm gets uncomfortable (I also sleep with arm partially under pillow). My tossing and turning disturbs my spouse, which I regret.
My wife has also been experiencing some hip/back pain. And I come to reason after schooling here that weāre sleeping on something too hard now, and the pressure points are getting to us. The mattress is also getting some impressions at this point.
I thought that the hybrid spring/talalay might be a good fit for us. We tried several different types of constructions though in our initial testing. We both found the 100% latex to be too bouncy for our liking, and didnt like the feel. We also were on several Naturepedic hybrids in various comfort levels. But my wife experience some real hip pain fairly quickly on a few of them: Im reasoning that her smaller frame didnt sink in enough on the dunlop. I found the premium pricing to mot match our comfort on them.
We commonly agreed on talalay as a better fit. We also both liked wrapped/pocketed coils as the motion transfer is dampered. I hope that helps if Im tossing.
We are in the PA/Philly area and took a trip to Magic Sleeper, and had a really good experience there. While a small shop in a warehousey environ, we had a quality visit and were well attended by the staff.
To my surprise (based on previous incorrect bias), we wound up favoring a Pillow Top: Eastman House Luxury Pillow Top English Hand Tufted. I like the tufting for help in holding layers in place, and my wife found the resulting āsectionedā top to be very comfortable. I liked several aspects of the design and mattress otherwise, and was my wifeās favorite by a long way.
They didnt have all the detailed specs on the model, and it has taken some doing to get them. There was apparently a big mattress industry convention the past week (I think I may have read that here too), so they had a hard time getting answers from bedding industries. In any case, we finally got there, and these are the specs from bottom to top:
2 inches: base poly foam: (high density 1.8 lbs/cu. ft.) 60 ild
8 inches: 6 turn 12 3/4 gauge Leggett and Platt wrapped coils
3 inches talalay in three layers:
1 inch ild 35
1 inch ild 35
1inch ild 20 (top layer)
wool/silk (firebarrier)
organic cotton quilting
The mattress sides are encased in HD poly foam 1.8lbs/ft. ild 80
It took some doing on the latex āblendāā¦ turns out its 97% synthetic / 3% natural (seems like a toke n amount). The Store mentioned that they would have preferred to see 2.5 lbs for the side encasement, and were a bit surprised in how synthetic the blend was. Their experience with the mattress for durability/customer sat has been very positive, and I found them to be open and honest otherwise.
But anyway, those are the specs. Iād appreciate your thoughts and comments.
Lastly, we were wondering about our existing box spring. I was inclined to replace it and start everything fresh. After a query on the brand of the box spring(Sealy, bought with mattress) , and what kind of support the bed had: (we have a queen wood sleigh bed, but I made five hardwood oak 2.5 inch slats -all with center supports for the bed), the store said they think our split box spring is fine (we cant get a whole box spring up our stairs). Theyād be happy to sell us one, but didnt feel it was needed. Wasnt really that much in grand scheme for a new one there though (120).
Thanks for your time.
It is really quite clear that you have done your research and testing, really well done.
I saw you mentioned you were sleeping on a pretty firm bed before at only 155lbs, so that could be a pretty big adjustment. How you do like the bed otherwise?