Hi
Thanks for providing this very informative site. I wonder if you can help me work out what is going on regarding a recent purchase of a latex mattress? I just bought my first latex mattress after years of sleeping on futons and pocket sprung mattresses. I am quite small (5 foot two), female and quite thin (around 8 stone in weight) but muscular.
The latex mattress, from a reputable UK supplier, was a 6-inch solid piece of natural Dunlop latex with 7 comfort zones, described as âfirmâ (80kg per cubic metre) and I hoped it would be suitable for me as someone who mainly sleeps on my back and having enjoyed using a futon mattress in the past.
When the mattress arrived it felt like a rock at first and quite uncomfortable but after a few nights I was sleeping quite well on my back without disturbance from my husband (who sleeps on anything) but, on waking in the morning, I noticed that the surface was so firm that I couldnât really spend much time lying on my side. It also didnât have the comfy feel I expected (even my futon had a softer surface) so I wondered if, considering my light weight, I should really have gone for the âmediumâ mattress instead.
I exchanged the firm mattress for a medium (also 6 inches of Dunlop latex with 7 comfort zones, but this time 70kg per cubic metre) expecting that it would be similar to the firm but just a bit softer. Well! How wrong I was! Where the firm mattress was solid and unmoving, the medium feels quite squashy and bouncy. The first couple of nights it felt really comfortable and my back sank into it what seemed just enough, although I noticed I was waking up several times in the night. On subsequent nights I started to have difficulty dropping off to sleep on my back, feeling hip and shoulder pressure that was quite uncomfortable. Now, after 7 nights, I can hardly sleep at all on my back or my side as I seem to be held at uncomfortable angles with pressure on shoulder and hip joints and, on waking, my hips are very painful and my shoulders feel almost pushed out of joint and similarly painful.
Now, I am completely baffled because, if this mattress is pushing on my joints like this presumably it is too firm? Then how did I escape having pain when I was sleeping perched on top of the even firmer mattress? If anyone could explain then I would be very grateful!
Luckily I can return this mattress, but I am unsure whether to go back to the firm one or just give up on latex altogether and return to a cotton-stuffed futon.
For those of us across the pond, that would be about 112 pounds at a BMI of 20.5. While I canât diagnose mattress comfort issues online, as there are far too many personal variables involved and I canât feel what you feel, I certainly can do my best to provide you with some general guidelines that might prove useful.
You certainly chose a good quality and durable material. An 80 kg/M3 mattress core would translated to about a 5 lb/ft3 density. While ILDs can vary a bit, this would generally be in the uppers 20s / lower 30s for an ILD, which most manufacturers consider a âmedium firmâ. Of course, terminology isnât standardized, so this information would be more for comparison purposes.
It sounds as if after a few nights you began to adjust to the new mattress and sleeping surface. There will always be what I term a âperiod of retrogressionâ where you adjust to your new mattress and lose some of your learned alignment from our old sleeping surface, and your mattress will also adjust a bit to you. What you describe seems to be that your alignment was fine (as evidenced by you âsleeping quite wellâ) but then you express a desire for a bit of extra surface plushness, which would be normal when sleeping more upon your side as compared to your back.
A 70 kg/M3 would translate to about 4.4 lb / ft3, which most manufacturers would consider in an upper teen â low 20 ILD range, which would generally be called plush. While this would certainly be softer feeling overall than your past choice, youâd also be sacrificing some support by choosing such a plush product.
To learn about pressure relief and support, there is more about primary or âdeepâ support and secondary or âsurfaceâ support and their relationship to firmness and pressure relief and the ârolesâ 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 âsupportâ and âpressure reliefâ and âfeelâ.
Of course the ideal would be to have both suitable support/alignment and comfort/pressure relief in a mattress (especially in this kind of much higher budget range), but if you have to choose one over the other then I would choose support/alignment. There is some great information in this PHD thesis by Vincent+Verhaer (who is one of a group of researchers that I greatly respect) about the importance of good spinal alignment that clearly indicates that for healthy individuals it has the single biggest effect on the depth and quality of sleep and recovery for healthy individuals. Having proper alignment doesnât necessarily mean that a mattress needs to feel hard like a board, and in your situation you certainly would want some surface comfort along with this deep support.
I canât explain exactly what is happening to you, but your current mattress is not as âsupportiveâ as your first mattress, and we know this by the difference in the density of the foam being less in your current mattress. However, a softer mattress can sometimes feel âfirmerâ because it allows certain areas of your body to sink in more deeply (sometimes too much), placing pressure on other areas of your body that have to bear this additional mass, resulting in a feeling of more âpressureâ, which many people relate as being too âfirmâ. Also, the zoning of this mattress can be playing into your feelings as well and with the less dense mattress it might not be supportive enough for you in certain areas. What you seem to be describing with feeling like youâre being âpushed out of jointâ is common for those sleeping upon a product that doesnât have enough deep down support.
Your first mattress seems to have provided you with a good natural alignment, and a compromise might have been to add 1"-2" of a bit of softer latex on top for when sleeping on your side, but not so much that it would negatively impact your alignment when sleeping upon your back. When you are looking for a softer surface comfort (as you initially stated for sleeping upon your side) changes made to the uppermost layers of a mattress will have the most noticeable and dramatic impact. Changing to the softer latex core did provide an initial softer feel, but it also seems to have negatively impacted your alignment.
All of this is my best âtheory at a distanceâ, but I help it, along with the information I linked, is assistive to you.
Thanks so much for your reply, Phoenix. When I read it it was as if a lightbulb came on above my head! I had no idea that even the âfirmâ mattress was not all that firm, which, of course, means that the âmediumâ isnât really very firm at all. The lack of the correct support with the medium mattress and the resulting loss of alignment would explain perfectly the feelings and pain that I was experiencing and I understand what you mean about the increased pressure in my hips and shoulders being experienced as firmness. It all makes perfect sense.
Yes, I think the âfirmâ mattress did provide a good alignment for back sleeping. I only slept on it for a total of 12 nights and, with hindsight, I wish I had trialled it for longer. I understand that latex does âbreak inâ to some extent; does that affect the deep support at all or just the surface firmness feel? (Having experienced gradually worsening pain on the âmediumâ mattress I am concerned that, over a longer period, if the deep support did change, I might lose my alignment on the âfirmâ mattress, although I hope that is unlikely?)
I see what you mean about the addition of a soft thin latex layer on top to aid with side sleeping. At the moment I couldnât afford that but I wonder if I could perhaps make use of a body pillow to make myself more comfortable when on my side.
The PhD and other links in your post were very useful. I find the science of sleep fascinating, especially as there still seems to be so much that is unknown. Once again, thankyou for the time and trouble that you take in replying to posters such as I with our mattress dilemmas. It is very much appreciated and I promise I shall let you know what the outcome is in my case.
Youâre very welcome. Iâm glad that my explanation made sense.
A longer testing period would have been ideal.
All foams get a little softer over time, but latex will tend to change the least during this initial âbreak-inâ period, and itâs possible that some of the âsinking inâ that youâre feeling is in fact your body adjusting to this different product and getting used to the softer comfort. As youâre dealing with a solid 6" core of latex, the area where the latex is subject to the most concentrated mechanical stresses (the top part of the slab) will âsoftenâ more than the bottom of the slab.
Itâs possible, but layerings placed under your body (as opposed to the side) will tend to have a greater impact upon comfort. Iâm not sure if a softer layer of latex on top of your current softer 6" core will be a good answer, as it wouldnât address what I think are the alignment issues youâre currently experiencing. The topper might be more appropriate for use with the firmer core, or perhaps going with a bit of a firmer topper on top of your soft core for a bit of a âdominatingâ layer effect.
Yes, I meant adding a topper to the firm core. Sorry, as I donât think my post was all that clear. I should probably have used quotes.
Thanks for explaining that any softening is likely to happen on the top rather than deeper in the latex slab. That helped me to make my decision, which was to exchange the current softer mattress for one the same as the original firmer core I tried. Thanks to the information you provided I now know to prioritise the fact that it gave me proper support and a good alignment for sleeping in my preferred position on my back.
I shall make sure I give myself plenty of time to get used to the surface feel this time round and if, after a number of weeks, it still seems rather unyielding and difficult to lie on my side then I will start to look at toppers.
This experience has taught me a lot. I had never really considered the fact that people typically choose mattresses while they are awake but they really need to know how they perform while they are asleep - something which takes some analysing! I can now see why so many of us choose wrongly so much of the time and Iâm very thankful that the option to trial mattresses is now available.
Iâll let you know how everything works out. Many thanks for all your time and trouble.
An update! After returning my rather too soft 6-inch latex core for a firmer option something slightly unexpected happened. Maybe the mattress suppliers read this forum or perhaps they are incredibly helpful, thoughtful people who knew just what to do after listening to my tale of woe - or maybe the whole thing was a co-incidence BUT I received a new firmer mattress which was at least a good half inch thicker than the original one I tried.
I suspect the original one may have been slightly less than 6 inches deep so the difference between the two is really the better part of an inch. This makes just enough difference in terms of cushioning that I can now lie comfortably on my side, yet the overall firmness is still suitable for correct alignment when sleeping in my preferred position on my back. The suppliers do sell a (more expensive) 7-inch core and I wondered at first if Iâd been sent the wrong mattress but, on measuring it, itâs definitely more like 6.5. This is a bit outside the size variations mentioned in the companyâs terms and conditions so I do wonder if this mattress had been put aside for an awkward (!) customer like me. Anyway, however I ended up with it I am very happy and most grateful.
I am especially grateful to Phoenix whose advice set me on the right track when trying to work out what to do and how to analyse the problems I was having initially. Thanks ever so much. I now have an extremely comfortable mattress and Iâm no longer waking up several times in the night.
