My wife and I just purchased a new TempurPedic Contour Elite bed after getting rid of our 8 year old spring mattress. The model in the store seemed both soft and supportive. However, we’ve had the mattress about 8 days now and I just can’t sleep through the night on it.
One of the reasons we wanted this mattress was the claim that it reduces or eliminates pressure points. Sleeping on this mattress is like sleeping on the floor. I sink in a couple inches and then hit a hard surface that’s completely unyielding. Pressure builds up in my shoulders causing me to toss and turn all night and wake up in pain. I’ve tried various combinations of pillows, both memory foam and conventional. I talked to the salesman who sold us the mattress and he said to give it 30 days and if we still don’t like it they will refund our money. I still regret shelling out over $4000 for this glorified slab of concrete.
Does anyone else have one of these mattresses and did it soften up over time? I just can’t imagine it softening up enough over the next 30 days to the point where it’s actually comfortable. We’ve tried walking around on it before bed to try to shorten the break in time but so far it doesn’t seem to be doing much.
I’m sorry you’re having some trouble adjusting to your new mattress.
No mattress can eliminate pressure points (hopefully you weren’t told this by any salesperson), but there are certain foams, specifically latex and visco-elastic memory foams, in proper softnesses, that can be good at assisting the distribution of your mass over a wider area and minimizing pressure points.
The Contour Elite uses 1.2" of 7.1 lb. Tempur HD memory foam over 2.3" of 5.3 lb. Tempur memory foam, over 2 - 4.5" of 2. Lb. Airflow polyfoam. This model is described as being in the “middle” of the Tempurpedic lineup, with some very dense memory foam on the top layer.
As you’ve only had the mattress for 8 days, it will certainly soften up and lose much of its “false firmness” within the first 30-60 days. We’ve had comments on the forum of a considerable difference in memory foam beds like this after one month of use. Obviously the showroom model has had more use than your new product (and could have been at a warmer room temperature which would have made it feel a bit softer), and would more than likely be more representative of what your mattress would feel like after this initial “break-in” period. You’ve already tried walking across the mattress, which with crawling and rolling on the mattress, are recommended to expedite the break-in of any new mattress.
If the mattress is still too firm for you, at least you had the foresight to purchase a product that does offer a return policy (from the first 30-90 nights).
I’m interested to learn of your progress, how much the mattress changes for you, and what you eventually decide to do.
Sorry about the late reply. I figured I would post an update so that any future visitors would know how this played out.
We returned the original TempurPedic and exchanged it for a softer model, the Cloud Elite. It’s very plush and I don’t wake up with neck pain and shoulder pain like I used to. My neck and shoulders are still a little stiff in the mornings but nothing like with the firmer bed. It’s far more comfortable and I can sleep through the night. My only complain is that occasionally I roll over and sleep on my back instead of my side which causes lower back pain in the morning. It’s nothing that walking around for a few minutes doesn’t take care of.
The mattress also came with free pillows. We chose the Tempur Soft and Lofty pillows which I realized are actually quite firm. I now either use a regular pillow or an older, softer Tempur Pedic pillow I’ve had for 6 years or so.
Overall, I probably would not spend the money on another Tempur Pedic bed in the future. While the new mattress is comfortable I don’t think it’s worth the money I spent on it.
I’m glad that you’re sleeping better on your softer Tempurpedic Cloud Elite model.
While I personally agree with you regarding the “value” as to pricing of the Tempurpedic line, they generally use higher quality materials and I’m hoping that you get many years of use out of your new mattress.
I thought of that. It was very difficult to tell which mattress we would like just by laying on them in the show room. I don’t remember if we looked at the Supreme or not but I was worried that even the Elite would be too hard. Coming from a very hard bed I think we decided to err on the safe side and go extra soft.
It IS so hard, choosing the right one! Once in a while you can find an awesome sales person who knows how to help match people, otherwise. if your back still bothers you or gets worse, try and check out the Surpeme, it’s one step firmer than the elite but heaps “softer” than the contour line (for ME anyway!), gosh i love the feel of tempurpedics, i wish someone could make an exact copy of that feel. They’d be millionaires overnight.
I hope it’s OK to revive this old thread in order to pose my similar question (I read through the forum rules).
My husband and I purchased a Tempurpedic ProAdapt in Medium just over a month ago and I am experiencing mid to lower back pain; I am trying to figure out whether this is my body still adjusting or whether I might need a topper of some kind.
A little bit about us: I am 5’6", 120 lbs, petite side sleeper that occasionally sleeps on my back (maybe 15% of the time). My husband is 6’1", 188 lbs, muscular side sleeper. He has completely eliminated his back pain since day 1 on this mattress. He loves it.
Previously, we were sleeping on a 10-year-old “Extra Firm” BeautyRest with a pillow-top topper. We were both experiencing a lot of back pain on that. The back pain i’m experiencing on the Tempurpedic seems to be a little higher and more focused in my flanks, oddly enough. But my whole back feels somewhat stiff.
I’m trying to determine what exactly is going on. I don’t think the mattress is too soft, since I am much more lightweight than my husband. It actually feels pretty firm to me, even though I do feel myself sinking a little. Could it be too firm for me and thus my lower back is not getting the cradling it needs? I know Tempurpedic uses pretty dense foam…so maybe I just need more time to break it in?
Unfortunately, we live in Guam (military) and bought the mattress from the base store with no option to exchange or return it so we need to somehow make it work for me. Would adding a topper maybe help? Something like latex?
Sorry this is so long!! Thank you so much for any advice you can give!!
Thanks for the post, and sorry about the back pain. This situation is interesting because any changes made could throw off your husbands nice fit with this mattress.
Backs can be very complex and it can take some analysis and detective work and some educated guesswork to track down the cause of back discomfort or pain. The most important goal of a suitable mattress is to support the spine and joints in neutral alignment in all your sleeping positions so that the muscles and other tissues can fully relax and not work during the night to maintain good alignment. It also needs enough softness on the surface to allow your pressure points to sink in enough so that direct pressure on various parts of the body don’t cause soreness. Too much firmness or too much softness in either the comfort or support layers can both lead to alignment and pressure issues, discomfort, or pain in various areas of the body.
I think you should maybe look at a plush latex topper, Talalay 19 or 24 ild in probably only 2 inches thick, it may be just enough and also not too much to throw off your husband’s sleep style.
Hope this helps, you can read more about this in this back pain post.
Thanks for the post, and sorry about the back pain. This situation is interesting because any changes made could throw off your husbands nice fit with this mattress.
Backs can be very complex and it can take some analysis and detective work and some educated guesswork to track down the cause of back discomfort or pain. The most important goal of a suitable mattress is to support the spine and joints in neutral alignment in all your sleeping positions so that the muscles and other tissues can fully relax and not work during the night to maintain good alignment. It also needs enough softness on the surface to allow your pressure points to sink in enough so that direct pressure on various parts of the body don’t cause soreness. Too much firmness or too much softness in either the comfort or support layers can both lead to alignment and pressure issues, discomfort, or pain in various areas of the body.
I think you should maybe look at a plush latex topper, Talalay 19 or 24 ild in probably only 2 inches thick, it may be just enough and also not too much to throw off your husband’s sleep style.
Hope this helps, you can read more about this in this back pain post.
Thanks for the post, and sorry about the back pain. This situation is interesting because any changes made could throw off your husbands nice fit with this mattress.
Backs can be very complex and it can take some analysis and detective work and some educated guesswork to track down the cause of back discomfort or pain. The most important goal of a suitable mattress is to support the spine and joints in neutral alignment in all your sleeping positions so that the muscles and other tissues can fully relax and not work during the night to maintain good alignment. It also needs enough softness on the surface to allow your pressure points to sink in enough so that direct pressure on various parts of the body don’t cause soreness. Too much firmness or too much softness in either the comfort or support layers can both lead to alignment and pressure issues, discomfort, or pain in various areas of the body.
I think you should maybe look at a plush latex topper, Talalay 19 or 24 ild in probably only 2 inches thick, it may be just enough and also not too much to throw off your husband’s sleep style.
Hope this helps, you can read more about this in this back pain post.
Thank you so much for that quick response, Sensei! You’re exactly right, my biggest hurdle is maintaining my husband’s sleep experience while making mine better.
As for the latex topper, that sounds perfect. Would you recommend just getting a twin for my side of the bed (we have a queen)? I guess that would take over more than half the bed though…so maybe get the queen and hope that my husband isn’t affected? A lot of places don’t ship to us here in Guam, or charge quite a bit, which makes things a little more complicated. I see a Sleep On Latex topper on Amazon though, that I believe will ship here. Are you familiar with that brand?
Quick update/plot twist. I woke up yesterday morning in such pain that I decided to pull out our old extra firm mattress with down feather-bed topper and sleep on that. Well, I slept MUCH better. Still a little sore but overall in much less pain. I liked the feeling of the pillow top over what feels like a lot of support. I wonder if putting our feather bed over the memory foam mattress might work??
Thanks for the message back. Just fyi, Sleep on Latex is a very well known and respected company, and nice to say one of our trusted mattress members.Totally understand about Guam shipping.
Yes, you should try the featherbed over the Tempur, no reason not to. I wouldn’t buy the twin xl topper, it will take up too much of the queen…its really a queen that you both agree on. Featherbed will be a good experience with how he adjusts to a more plush surface.
