Hi hcanton,
Your body shape can certainly make finding a suitable mattress more challenging and your side/stomach sleeping is also somewhat challenging as well because they are at opposite ends of the spectrum with stomach sleepers typically needing a firmer sleeping surface to prevent the hips and pelvis from sinking in too far and sleeping in a swayback position and side sleepers needing a thicker softer sleeping surface to relieve pressure on the hips and shoulders. In very general terms it can be a good idea to choose a mattress that is “just enough” in terms of the thickness and softness of the comfort layers to relieve pressure when you are sleeping on your side so that there is less risk of sleeping out of alignment when you are sleeping on your stomach. Side sleepers and stomach sleepers usually need pillows that can accommodate both sleeping positions as well and stomach sleepers can also benefit from sleeping with a pillow underneath their pelvis / lower abdomen to help keep them in alignment.
Various zoning systems can also be very useful and worth considering for people who have more challenging circumstances or sensitivities, body types that are more difficult to “match” to a mattress, or who have a history of having more difficulty in finding a mattress that works well for them. There is more about zoning in this article and in post #11 here.
[quote]Denver Mattress Co in Lincoln, has the Aspen Plush that has 3"of 24 ILD talalay in it, along with 2.5" of supersoft quilting foam, and an inch of 2 lb HR foam on top of “orthopedic” zoned 15.5 gauge pocket coils, which we both found cloudlike, but which had me dipping at my waist. They also have the iChoice HeveaPUR which is quilted with 2" 24ILD talalay, 1" EF foam, has a 3" 14ILD talalay topper, and a support system of 4" 32ILD talalay and 3" 1.8lb HR foam. This was a very cloud soft mattress, but too much so for us- even my husband was visibly saucer-shaped and had side-strain when on his side on this one, which I don’t think he mentioned on any other of the many beds we’ve tried. In addition Denver Mattress’s website shows that they carry 3 all talalay mattresses (HeveaPUR 8, 9, & 10.5 inches) that are stacked in different ILD layers, but the outlet in Lincoln didn’t yet have them, although he expected to get them in soon…
Taking what I’ve learned from those mattresses, I know that 38 and 32 ILD talalay is too hard for us, 18 ILD is too soft, and 24 ILD might be too soft, but it is hard to say for certain since it was always on beds in combination with other soft foams. There don’t seem to be any latex beds in the area where we could try out what layering of different talalay ILD’s would feel like, other than the 38/18 one at Midwest Bedding, and Denver Mattress’s too soft iChoice.
Although, afterwards I realized he didn’t give me the ILD for either the talalay or the memory foam, but since the talalay is only a 1/2 inch layer, and I do have at least the density of the memory foam, I didn’t want to call him back and press for the ILD’s since he was already really testy the first time I called! [/quote]
When you are testing mattresses locally I would also keep in mind that knowing the ILD of the layers isn’t particularly important to know because with careful testing your body will tell you much more about whether a mattress “as a whole” is a suitable “match” for you in terms of PPP than the ILD of any of the individual layers. Every layer and component in a mattress will have an effect on the feel and performance of every other layer and component above and below it and ILD is only one of several variables or “specs” that will determine how soft or firm a layer or a mattress “as a whole” will feel to different people (see post #4 here). In addition to this the ILD of different materials or different types and blends of latex also aren’t always directly comparable to each other (see post #6 here) so using ILD by itself as a reliable indication of how any mattress will “feel” for you can sometimes be more misleading than helpful . For example a top layer that is only 1" thick can feel completely different from another layer that is 2" thick if the rest of the materials and components are the same.
You won’t be able to tell the response time of memory foam based on specs and the only way to know this would either be your own personal experience or a more detailed conversation with an online supplier who will know how their memory foam compares to other types of memory foam that are available.
Once again though … the thickness of any memory foam layers and the other layers and components both above and below it will have a significant effect on the feel and performance and resilience (springiness) of a mattress that contains memory foam so one mattress that contains memory foam may be much more or less resilient than another mattress that contains the same type of memory foam depending on the thickness of the memory foam layer, its position in the mattress, and the other materials and components in the mattress.
Unless you have a great deal of knowledge and experience with different types of mattress materials and specs and different layering combinations and how they combine together and can translate them into your own “real life” experience that can be unique to you (which would only be a very small percentage of people) … I would tend to avoid using individual specs such as layer thicknesses or ILD numbers or other complex combinations of information or specifications to try and predict how a mattress will feel or perform for you and focus more on your own actual testing and/or personal experience. While knowing the specs that can affect the quality and durability of the layers and components in a mattress is important … when you try and choose a mattress based on complex combinations of “comfort” specs that you may not fully understand then the most common outcome can be information overload and “paralysis by analysis”.
Phoenix