So, i ordered the Aloe Alexis at the beginning of December and got it right before Christmas. Me and the wife have been sleeping on it for about a month now. We ordered a comfort level 6. Overall i really like the quality and support it provides compared to my old innerspring mattress. Me and my wife were experiencing lower back pain on a regular basis on our old mattress.
So far i would say i have about 40%/60% (good/bad) nights. When i have a good night, it’s really good so i can see the potential the mattress has. When i first got it, my first night was horrible. My second night was the complete opposite and way better. I no longer have back pain during the day. So it has helped my body. When i have a “bad” night i can feel lower back or hip pain while laying in bed but it disappears once i get up. I usually notice this around 5 or 6 am. The best way i can describe it is this…It’s like the bed is working against me and pushing on my body. It’s like my body can’t sink where it needs to be or something.
So far my wife has about 70%/30% nights (good/bad). She mostly has good nights but she also experiences the push back feeling the mattress has when she does have a bad night. To alleviate the pain felt in bed she just gets up and is fine.
I did expect our bodies to take time to get used to the new mattress but it seems like after a month we should be adjusted. I guess i will contact dreamfoam soon to get their thoughts and possibly do a layer exchange. I assume i need to go softer.
I will keep this thread updated with my experience. I know others reviews on this site helped me make my decision and i hope i can help others too.
Belated congratulations on your new Dreamfoam mattress! :cheer: You certainly made a good quality/value choice.
Adjusting to a new mattress is normal, and it sounds like the product is providing much better support/alignment than you old mattress, which is a good thing.
What you both are describing (pushback and discomfort going away right after getting up) typically would be common for someone who desired just a bit more surface plushness, but that’s a general statement. The “pushback” you describe is typical of latex, as it does provide a better surface support than traditional polyfoam like in your old innerspring mattress. The good news is that you did have the foresight to choose a product that allows for a comfort exchange should you choose to do so after a conversation with Dreamfoam.
Mattresses can take up to six months to fully “break-in”, depending upon their configurations. Your mattress should have lost most of its “false firmness” already. Your personal adjustment might actually take a little longer. You still have some time on your 90 night trial should you decide to see if things change.
I do appreciate you taking the time to provide such detailed feedback, and I look forward to any future reports.
OK so i have a little update to add. After talking to my wife we decided to flip our layers putting the 28 on top of the 24. Our thinking behind this was that the 28 would firm things up and not allow our buttocks and shoulders to sink as far and therefore eliminating the push back feeling ( in the curvature of our backs it felt like an exercise ball being pushed in our backs). Plus, we only get one free exchange so we want to rule out all options we currently have before using our one freebie.
My wife loves the 28 over 24 and it seems to have fixed her problems. She wakes up a little stiff but her back issues are gone. No more exercise ball in the back feeling for her. She has been sleeping on this configuration now for about 4-5 nights.
I, on the other hand, could not stand the 28 over 24. I found it much too firm for my liking. I slept on it for one night. It did seem to help my back but it is way too firm for me. After chatting with dreamfoam they recommend i try a 24 over 24 for a night to see if that fixes it. Otherwise i need to do a layer exchange and get a 19 ild to try the 19 over 24 or 24 over 19 to see if that helps me.
I really do hope some configuration ends up working for me because my wife loves the mattress and had suffered through our old innerspring until we bought this one.
Your comments are a good example of the difficulty of attempting to “diagnose” someone’s comfort preference. The “pushback” you described for your wife is different from yours, and with the adjustment to a dominating layer on top, she is more comfortable, which could mean that her “pushback” was a result of sinking in a bit too much placing more pressure on an area of her body that was allowed to sink in too deeply, or it could have been from wanting to “bend in” more gently to the deeper transition layer, which would be achieved by the switch you mentioned. The solution involved could have corrected two totally different comfort issues. The most important thing is that I’m glad she’s found a result that is more comfortable for her preference.
I think that sounds like a reasonable and logical set of steps in the proper direction for you based upon your reaction to the 28 ILD over 24 ILD, and reaction to the 24 over 28 ILD the first month you had the mattress.
Well. I’ve slept on the 24/24 for a week now. At first it seemed to help a little. But then i had a night or two of the ball in the back feeling (or too much lumbar support) as i was having on the 24/28. Then i had two really good nights. No discomfort, slept great. Then these last two nights have been bad. Waking up at the magical 4 o’clock hour with discomfort no matter how i lay (either side or back). I did order the 19ild layer last Thursday. Hopefully it gets here this week.
At this point it’s getting frustrating for me. I don’t understand how i can have such good nights and thinking ok, this is getting better. Then bam, nope back to the same old issues i’ve been having. This is my 6th week, half way through my 90 night trial of trying different configurations.
I really don’t want to return the mattress due to my wife having such good nights sleep. She actually likes the 28/28 better than the 28/24. But at the end of the day if i’m having such erratic nights i’ll have to return it and start my mattress search over. I must say, i’ve never had a mattress give so much discomfort that i can’t sleep in the most simple position, my back,
I will update once i get the 19ild layer and sleep on it for awhile and make my final decision to return / keep the mattress.
When you have wide swings in your depth of sleep, and the mattress is staying the same, this tends to point more toward environmental issues (changes in your level of flexibility, alignment, stress, fatigue, etc…), as the mattress isn’t changing form night to night (except when you are altering configurations).
I wish there was a reliable way for me to offer advice, but I can’t predict via these posts with any accuracy, and the advice I post can only be used as general things for you to investigate. You are actually doing the best research through your own careful testing, and I’m hoping you find better results with your next layerings.
ok, so i am here to give my final verdict. I received a layer exchange (comfort level 8 - 2 19 ild layers for a king). I tired the 19 over 24 and saw a little improvement but not much at all. I still felt the ball in the back feeling and hip discomfort. Then i tried the 19 over 19. This combo felt the best to me out of every other combination i tried. However, it still was not perfect. I still felt the ball in the back feeling and hip discomfort if laying on my side. I feel like the mattress was actually creating pressure points as opposed to relieving them. We were on our 70th some day and decided to do a refund.
After sleeping in discomfort for so long and not seeing a big enough improvement with the 19 over 19 i could not justify keeping the mattress. I will say that Chuck over a Dreamfoam is a top notch guy to work with. The layer exchange process and the overall return / refund process went extremely smooth. After the mattress was picked up i emailed Chuck and my refund was processed that same day. I actually had the refund on my card within 2-3 days. So if you decide to try one of their mattresses out do not worry about the refund process!
Since i sent this one back we were back to square one, plus i already got rid of our old mattress. We made the decision that we needed to try a mattress out before buying because we did to want to go through all of this a second time. Plus we needed something to sleep on. We went to many different places trying out mattresses. We instantly knew we did not want memory foam. Even though memory foam felt fine before we got the Alexis, our taste had changed. All the memory foam mattresses we laid on gave us that ball in the back feeling. So we laid on a few pillow-top hybrids and liked the feel of 2-3 different ones. We were finally making progress. Even though it went against all my research and everything on this site we selected a Serta mattress from Sam’s Club.
We did this for a couple reasons. Pretty much any store we went to had a 10-12 business day wait time and we kind of needed something in stock. Plus other stores had a 30-120 night policy but you could only do a one time exchange (often involving restocking fees) and not get a refund, which made me leery after our experience thus far. Sam’s Club offers a 2 year, that is not a typo, policy. You can take it home sleep on it and anytime in 2 years if you do not like the mattress you can take it back for a full refund or exchange it for another. After sleeping on our new Serta for 2 nights we are both getting better sleep than we’ve had in 2 1/2 months. Even though my wife liked the Alexis she said she sleeps better on the new Serta.
I’m still experiencing some hip discomfort, and i think it’s due to the Alexis. I’ve never ever in my life had any kind of hip pain or discomfort until i slept on the Alexis. Hopefully this will subside over time.
All in all and after doing hours upon hours of research nothing compares to what you can actually feel in person. If i could suggest anything after all of this is make sure you go to a store and lay on a mattress. If you like it, buy what feels good. I also can’t tell you how many times i talked to a salesmen at various stores saying they get people in all the time that buy mattresses online then come in complaining. Maybe that’s the salesman being a salesman, idk… Maybe i put too much thought and effort in research and just needed to buy what feels best to me.
It’s really difficult buying something you spend 6+ hours on a night without trying it out first. That’s hard to do when making a purchase online. At the end of the day everyone has a very wide range on how comfortable something is so reading reviews on that is pretty much pointless. I mean the next 10 people to buy an Alexis may love them even though i did not. I guess that’s why there are probably thousands of different types of mattresses.
If you’re reading this review i wish you all the luck in finding your new mattress.
I’m sorry your Dreamfoam didn’t work out well for you, but I’m glad you received good service from Chuck and had the foresight to choose something that had a good return policy.
You’re correct that some people are best served by staying local and trying things out in person. Everyone has their own preferences and sensitivities, and shopping online isn’t for everyone for such a personal and subjective item.
I wish you luck with your new mattress and hope it turns out better for you!
