For my daughter’s first “big girl” bed, I bought a spindle. We went to a fancy natural home store and tried out the little lamb by suite sleep. You can do an almost apples to apples comparison of these two mattresses, they even get their ecowool from the same mill (as far as I can tell). The suite sleep is a 6" mattress, and then later you add a topper when your child gets older. It’s about double the price with both components. The cover of the spindle is very high quality, I would almost say it’s more plush than the flobeds (note:the bottom is a polyester blend, it’s not wool/cotton all around). The latex had some small areas of surface discoloration. Very slight latex smell. I got a firmness recommendation by phone for a soft (M/M/M). I think this was a mistake, they seem to be under the impression their latex is overly firm but I don’t agree, this feels a little too soft for a kid’s bed. I will order one for my son in a few months so we’ll just get an XF (F/F/F) instead of doing a paid adjustment and we’ll end up with a medium and a firm configuration. I’ve done a week’s worth of story time in this bed and I love it, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this company to anyone looking for an affordable latex mattress.
For ourselves, I bought a flobed vzone. I would have never dreamed of calling our high end memory foam mattress uncomfortable before this, but I’ve been struggling mightily during this pregnancy to get comfortable and I would do anything to get a good night’s sleep at this point. Again here I think we were steered too soft, though. Maybe I need to be recalibrated on what’s considered firm. Putting in my specs I ended up with a M/S on my side for base layers and M/F for my husband (we’re lightweights). My side in the soft parts of the vzone is basically a giant marshmallow. I’m not sure I dislike it yet, but I really wasn’t expecting it to be THAT soft. My husband also finds his too squishy. I think we’ll get an XF exchange and move him to a XF/F and me to a M/M. The cover is very high quality and the latex has the same slight odor as the spindle. For me, especially with a giant pregnant belly, the vzone is incredible. I’d been contorting myself in all kinds of configurations to sleep on my side and was having constant shoulder and hip pain. I no longer toss and turn at all, almost every position is comfortable. However, there is one big negative:motion transfer. It feels like a waterbed. This is at least partly due to a techinically sufficient but not-so-high quality setup (to be replaced soon), but it’s orders of magnitude worse than the memory foam. It doesn’t really bother me that much but it was completely unexected on my part.
Some other things I bought in my quest for a good night’s sleep:
-k-lex pillow: amazing for side sleeping but super high maintenance. requires constant fluffing/breaking up of clumps
-naturepedic mattress protector with straps: sent back. follows naturepedic’s mantra of manufacturing safe, healthy, massively uncomfortable products. (see: any of their crib mattresses, and also the bad amazon reviews).
-brooklinen luxe sheets: returned. these are the kind of sheets you’d be happy to get for your guestroom for $60. Unfortunately they cost more than double that. They are scratchy, pilled on first wash, and the pillowcases are too short and have no cuffs, which makes them look cheap. That’s my last experience with “bedding disruptors.”
I hope this helps someone. I got a lot info from these forums and thought I should give back.
