I ordered a king size mattress from sleepez (10000). Both sides are soft medium firm. I love it but my husband,who is 5’11" and weighs 180lbs, thinks it’s too hard. He slept on a much softer mattress previously. He’s been sleeping on the new mattress for 2 months now and he still finds it uncomfortable. So, what other layer combinations can we try. I know we could do soft soft firm but I am wondering whether that would be supportive enough. Alternatively we could do soft medium medium. Would that make it feel softer?
Your advice phoenix would be greatly appreciated
thanks
Janina
Hi Janina, I am in the process of swapping layers with SleepEZ.
I can tell you that recently I tried out 2" talalay soft, 2" talalay medium, and then firm and x-firm on the bottom. It was REALLY soft. Too soft for my tastes. Maybe you could switch out the medium dunlop for a medium talalay? I’m not sure if SleepEZ would do that or not, but I do know they have bent over backwards to take care of me.
I currently have 3" soft, 3" medium and 3" firm talalay (no dunlop). My husband finds it too firm.
Hi paaschjc,
I can understand that the transition to even “soft” latex can feel firmer than some people are used to who have slept on other types of even softer material.
There are several ways you could go with this. Koala mentioned one of them if any of your layers are Dunlop and could be switched for Talalay which is softer with deeper compression. What type of latex is in the mattress you ordered?
A second option would be for SleepEz to custom order a softer top layer of say 19 ILD which would be slightly softer than the top layer you currently have.
Another option if he felt like the layer was close but not “quite right” would be to use a wool mattress pad which may give him some pressure point relief in local pressure points but would be a more localized pressure relief than the overall pressure reduction of a softer latex layer. A topper that was an inch or so of softer foam would give a more overall sense of softness and pressure relief and may also be a consideration.
Finally is the suggestion you made which would be to exchange the firm bottom layer with a medium (and I would not go soft soft firm). This would not make a huge difference (because the lower layer will have less affect on the mattress surface) but it would make some but may also be heading in the direction of risking support. I would tend towards top layer adjustments rather than adjusting the lower layer unless you knew for certain that there was “room” to reduce the support qualities of the mattress.
Overall it would depend on exactly what he wanted to achieve, the areas he wanted to achieve it (shoulders, hips, etc) and the symptoms that the current mattress was producing or whether it was just a more subjective sense of firmness that he didn’t like as much.
It may help if you could be a little more specific about what he is experiencing and the difference between how it is and what he would consider “perfect”. Sometimes certain terms (such as too firm) can have different many meanings or causes and making sure you are fixing the right problem (such as my shoulders don’t sink in far enough) can be very helpful and important for the “best” solution 
Phoenix
Thanks for the response Pheonix. we have’t gotten the chance to play around with the layers, which is why i haven’t reported back yet. Since we only have 3 layers, is is difficult to make a lot of significant changes without losing the support. I was thinking of maybe adding on a 1.5" topper of laytex. Maybe even ordering a custom soft layer of latex as you suggested. Do you think that 1.5" would be sufficient or would we need more?
Hi paaschjc,
It would probably be helpful if I had more information along the lines of my comments in the last post. I would also make sure you knew exactly what your specific goal was before deciding on any changes.
It would also help to know what Shawn suggested when you talked to him (he would be the first source of ideas because his database of customers that use these specific materials and may have similar preferences to you is much larger than mine of course).
If you can provide more details I’d be happy to add my comments to Shawn’s
Phoenix
all three layers are talalay.
My husband complains of pressure points when laying on his side. He says it feels like parts of him are falling asleep. If he lays on his back all night, then he has no problems but he is predominantely a side sleeper. I think he likes more of a sinking in feeling.
we tried putting my soft on top of his firm, medium, soft so that he has 2 layers of soft over medium and firm and he really liked that. So we were thinking about upgrading to the 13000. However, when I spoke to Jeremy at sleepez, he said he would absolutely not recommend that, saying it would not be supportive enough and that my husband would have problems down the road. However, he did say that by simply adding another layer, that the mattress as a whole would feel much softer because you are farther away from the support. Is this actually true? Does another 3 inches really make a noticable difference? I was thus thinking that we could both add a medium layer under the soft so that we would have firm, medium, medium, soft since we can’t do two soft layers. What do you think? Would that make it feel softer overall? Are two soft layers really a problem. what about doing two soft layers but then putting two firm layers underneath for more support?
I appreciate your input.
Hi passchjc,
This is good feedback and these types of “numbness” symptoms are more typical of pressure issues that can be corrected with a softer or thicker comfort layer or with increasing the overall pressure relief of the mattress in other ways.
Yes … Jeremy is giving you good information and I would not recommend it either. Pressure relief and support are “opposites” and this type of correction would have a real risk of making the mattress less supportive and creating a new problem by correcting the first one. Being as close as possible to the support layer is important. Thickness and softness work hand in hand and even adding an inch of material or a seemingly small change in ticking/quilting can make a significant differemce in how a mattress feels and performs for a particular individual.
Yes … two soft layers could present a problem because you will have 6" of soft material over the support layers and this would tend to put you too far away from the support layers. In most cases … this would be too much “soft stuff” on top. The idea of adding an extra medium in the middle would be better (it would be a smaller and less “radical” change than the extra soft layer). It would lessen the suupport and increase the pressure relief in a smaller increment.
Before I did this though … I would try the soft layer with two mediums underneath on your husbands side (and of course this will leave you with firmer layers under the soft one for a few nights while he is testing) and see how this affects things and the degree of effect it has. This would change the pressure relief/support balance in a smaller increment and the goal is always to make changes that are “just enough” so that you can keep the best support possible. This is also made a little more difficult because your husband is used to sleeping on a much softer mattress previously so part of this may involve him adjusting to a better level of support and part of it may involve making adjustments so that his adjustments and the mattress adjustments can “meet in the middle”.
Once you have tried the S/M/M in his side … I would use his feedback to decide on the next step (which may involve a layer exchange or a thinner topper or other more fine tuning adjustments)
What type of mattress protector and sheets/bedding do you have over the mattress (because this can also make a difference and be used to do some fine tuning in some cases)?
The best idea is always to make the smallest possible steps at any one time so that you don’t end up going too far in any direction (softness or support) and flip flopping between different problems. In many cases people may be closer than they think they are or not know the difference that a smaller change can make. It’s also important to test each change for long enough (at least a few days) so that you know that how it feels is consistent and not due to other unknown or more subjective factors that may be mistakenly connected to the change because they happen to happen at the same time.
Phoenix