I’ve mentioned before, we bought a firm Simmons individual spring coil mattress and topped it with a 3" 4lb memory foam topper (from Nature’s Sleep). The mattress began to sag after only a few years and is giving us backaches and pain, the topper’s still great. Well, in the course of our mattress shopping and learning about mattresses, my husband wanted to take the topper off and have a good look at the mattress. The topper ended up folded in thirds on the floor next to the bed. I wondered how that (now 9") of 4lb memory foam would feel right on the floor? (Well, on top of carpet pad & carpet.) I tried it out and it actually felt great! Then I tried just folding it in half so that it’s 6" of memory foam on the floor and it still felt great. Good support keeping the back level and good conformity for comfort. We’ve taken turns over the last few nights sleeping on it all night and wake up with no backache or pain in hips. This is leading us to wondering how necessary all the thickness and layers of mattresses are? Is it more about perception than anything else? I think we are leaning more towards putting together our own mattress now, choosing our own components. Any warnings or tips on this?
Hi SleepDeprived,
There is much more than only perception involved in the design of a mattress. The first rule of mattresses is that the “best” mattress is the one that works best for you in terms of the balance between support/alignment and comfort/pressure relief or what I call PPP (Posture and alignment, pressure relief, and Personal preferences). In addition to this the durability of the materials are also a major part of an informed choice because no matter how a mattress “feels” in the short term … all foams will soften over time which leads to the gradual loss of comfort and support. If you are using 6" of memory foam on the floor or a solid foundation then the floor or the foundation would be your support layer and the floor doesn’t adapt to changing sleep positions or weights like an innerspring of a foam which is generally necessary in a mattress. For most people this would be a risky construction without having a more resilient support system underneath the memory foam … especially when the memory foam softens in the areas that have the most weight (the pelvis) over time. you can read a little more about the pros and cons of memory foam in this article.
The mattresses section of the site also includes information about some of the theory behind mattress construction and how to match different designs to different body types and sleeping positions but building your own can involve a steep learning curve and some trial and error and cost because most people don’t have the knowledge or experience about mattress design and theory to build their own unless they are putting together a mattress that is a close approximation of a mattress design they know works well for them. There is more about building your own mattress in post #15 here and in post #3 here and in post #4 here.
Thick layers of 4 lb density memory foam can be somewhat risky because memory foam tends to “allow” the heavier pelvis to sink down too far which is why memory foam isn’t used as a support material in the bottom of a mattress but no matter what theory may say your own personal experience is the most reliable guideline.
I would keep in mind though that over the course of time a mattress that uses 6" thick layers of 4 lb memory foam may not turn out to be as suitable in the long term as you hope once the memory foam softens or some of the potential weaknesses of the design in terms of support and alignment becomes more apparent over time.
Phoenix
Hi Phoenix,
Let me rephrase my post, I realize I didn’t explain my thoughts very well.
What I meant was, if 6" of memory foam felt great sitting on the floor (I realize that would not hold up over time or be ideal), I am wondering if the huge thick mattresses that are available these days commercially are designed more to offer a perception of luxury than any real advantage thickness offers in and of itself? I have been conditioned to believe a mattress must be huge in thickness in order to provide the best support and cushioning, full of mysterious springs and layers of this and that.
I am wondering if a layer of latex, or other support foam, and one of memory foam above it, or perhaps with a middle layer of a medium support, could offer much better support as well as comfort at a much thinner profile and more simple design? And now I’m wondering if I would be better to determine myself what support and cushioning works for me than trying to find a mattress design that works for me. And the thought of being able to tweak the design or change out layers that wear out is also attractive.
Okay, I just found your post about mattress thickness here and it pretty much answered my questions. (There is so much information on this site, it makes my head spin!)
For someone as lightweight as I am, it doesn’t seem like a 14" mattress should be necessary just to get the cushioning and support I need? I am wondering if that is why I found the memory foam mattresses at the stores made me feel like I was sagging at the hips, because I am not heavy enough to sink down to the support layer? I don’t know, this all sure does get complicated. At this point all I know is that 6" of 4lb memory foam on the floor felt better than any of the mattresses I tried so far, lol! (And by ‘felt better’ I mean, my back was blissfully straight and my bones were cushioned). I hope I can find something permanent that gives me the same feel.
Hi SleepDeprived,
OK … now I understand what you were asking and I completely agree with you that the “thickness” of a mattress sold as a benefit without regards to the specific materials inside … or which in many cases are just an excuse to add cheap low quality materials to a mattress for the benefit of consumer perception or the selling price of a mattress … are a waste of money and time. In most cases they can actually create bigger issues as the softer lower quality comfort layers on top will only soften and impress faster and the materials in the bottom of the mattress are so far away from the person on the mattress that they can become almost meaningless. The “ultra thick” mattresses that are so common and that usually include some type of pillowtop are often the type of mattresses that are sold to boost profit margins or to “trap” unwary consumers that really don’t know any better and can be much worse in every way (including durability and suitability) than a mattress that is more suitable to the specific needs and preferences of the person sleeping on it.
I completely agree with this as well and it’s always best to focus on PPP than on the comfort specs of a mattress. In most cases … once you set aside all the things that the mainstream industry “wants you to believe” and look for mattresses that actually work well in “real life” based on your actual experience you will almost certainly end up with a much more suitable choice in terms of quality and value. The “value” of a mattress that can be “tweaked” in various ways is also a bonus. Sometimes this involves layers that can be re-arranged or exchanged and sometimes this could be a local manufacturer that will open up the mattress and change out a layer at a very reasonable or in some cases no cost at all to make it more suitable for your needs and preferences. Some designs include a base mattress and a topper that can be exchanged or even replaced when necessary without having to replace the entire mattress.
This is almost certainly true although to some degree it will depend on the specific design of the mattress. If you start off with a mattress support core that is in the range of 6" to 8" then it’s not very likely that you would need 6" of padding above this. There is a little more about primary support, secondary support, and pressure relief in post #4 here and the role of deep support layers, transition layers, and comfort layers and how they work together. The simplest way though is to use the feedback from your body to tell you whether a mattress works well in terms of PPP and then make sure you know the quality of all the layers so you can identify any weak links or lower quality materials that would reduce the useable life of the mattress. In essence you are testing for the two main functions of a mattress which are comfort/pressure relief, and support/alignment along with the preferences you can “feel”. Beyond that all you really need is the information that tells you about the quality and durability of the materials in the mattress so that you know what you feel on the mattress will last longer before the loss of comfort and support leads to the need to replace the mattress. Much of what you pay for in a mattress is the quality of the materials (unless you are buying an ultra thick mattress where you are paying for more problems) because you can’t “feel” the quality and durability of the materials and lower quality and higher quality materials can feel the same in a showroom.
The industry would also have you believe that the warranty on a mattress is connected to the useable life of a mattress or the quality of the materials but this is just more “marketing” because a warranty only covers factory defects and the more rapid softening of lower quality materials isn’t considered a “defect” but just “normal” wear and tear. There is more about warranties in post #174 here. Even most retailers in the mainstream industry include the length of a warranty as a replacement for educating their customers about what is actually in the mattress and will use the length of a warranty as a selling tool to convince customers that longer warranties equals higher quality. Like the thickness of a mattress, it’s mostly meaningless except as a small piece of a bigger picture.
If you had a mattress that used a thinner memory foam comfort layer or layers in some combination with a more resilient polyfoam support layer or perhaps a transition layer of a couple of inches of softer polyfoam in the middle it would likely may be very similar to what you felt with 6" of memory foam on the floor with less risk involved.
Polyfoam and latex are both more resilient than memory foam although they can also be very pressure relieving (like memory foam). Latex is particularly pressure relieving in the right softness because of its ability to contour to the shape of the body (also like memory foam). The difference is that memory foam is always in a soft range (once it warms up to body temperature) and responds to temperature, humidity, pressure, and time (it gets softer as it stays compressed over the course of the night) so it can “allow” the heavier parts of your body to continue sinking in over the course of the night if the layers are too thick while polyfoam and latex only respond to pressure so it doesn’t change its firmness level and how it responds over the course of the night. Polyfoam, latex, and innersprings can also be made much firmer than memory foam so they can be used for support layers while memory foam isn’t suitable for use in the deep support layers of a mattress. Memory foam mattresses needs some kind of more resilient but firmer layer underneath it that isn’t affected by temperature and time underneath it as a support layer to “stop” the pelvis from sinking in too much and maintain good spinal alignment…
Phoenix