please help

Hi All,

I have had a long saga of wrong frame/wrong mattress. It began with a Tempurpedic on a cheap slat frame. I returned the Tempurpedic as I found it just got far too hot for me. I exchanged it for a traditional mattress - all was good. Then the slats broke. Replaced those and the bed was never the same and always felt “off”. I changed mattresses a few times as I then became convinced the mattress was the problem. Eventually I settled on a mattress which I put on the floor for a few years and was happy and I gave up on that slat bed altogether.

Fast forward a few years and I have a new fiancé. I needed some storage space. The saga was a distant memory so I invested in a expensive slat bed (with storage), with curved slats that sit very close together and have good centre support. $2000 later - the bed looks great - but I feel like it is sinking at night! If I sleep in the middle over the bar I am fine, but when I am over the slats I have the feeling of sinking. I don’t know what to do…?..

These are the things I am considering:

  1. adding a bunky, but if I do this I want to make my own as I don’t want the bed to be two inches higher
  2. ditching the slats entirely and the storage space below it - I think I could fit a standard frame in the area where the slats were (it has a fabric footboard and side rails)
  3. getting yet another mattress which is more supportive* - but what kind - (maybe a more expensive option???)
  4. any combination of the above

*throughout all this above I ended up with an extra double as I traded the tempurpedic in for two mattresses and gave that to a relative. That double is on a standard frame. Of course, I have the best sleep ever when I stay there, so I know that somewhere out there is a good mattress for me. I also sleep great at good hotels with high quality beds.

I’d really like my next decision on this to be a good decision, as the money I have spent on mattresses and bedframes is rapidly adding up.

Any advice is appreciated!
Thank you

Hi mideastprincess,

I would probably try your mattress on the floor for a while (a week or so) and see if that solves the problem. If it does then that and the fact that sleeping over the part of your slat bed that doesn’t flex would seem to indicate that the flexible slats are the issue and is allowing you to sink down too far with the heavier parts of your body (the pelvic area). This would also tell you whether it was your mattress or the flexible slats that was causing the problem.

I don’t know the details of your slat bed so I don’t know what kind of changes are possible but if it appears that the flexible slats are the problem and you can exchange the flexible slats for non flexing rigid slats then the odds are good that this would solve your problem. If the slats cant be changed for some reason then removing them completely as you suggested and replacing them with a firm non flexing frame something like this inside your bedframe (or one of the others that are linked in the foundation thread here) would also have good odds of success.

Phoenix

Thank you very much for the advice.

I have tried the mattress on the floor and that does solve the problem so you are correct.

I take it you think placing a bunky board on the slats is not a solution?

If I were to try a different mattress is there something that might work better on these slats?

I ask these questions because I think if I give up the slats I will loose the storage. That may just be a consequence I have to deal with but just wanted to explore all options first.

Really appreciate the help. It is nice to have a source to answer my questions.

Hi mideastprincess,

Putting anything over the slats that was level, stable, and well “seated” and didn’t have any flex would provide similar support to the floor. A piece of plywood that was stable and would also sit level on your slats could also work.

This is really too broad a question to answer with any specificity. In theory there would probably be a mattress or several mattresses that in combination with your slat base would work well for you but only your own testing could tell which one that may be. If you tested a mattress in a store that had a similar slat base and it worked well then it would probably also work well on yours if the slats were similar in tension and design. You would need to find a mattress store though where you could test many mattresses on a similar slat system.

Phoenix

Thanks again Phoenix. Your advice is so helpful.