I have read through the excellent Mattress Underground tutorial and have concluded my ideal mattress would be: Differential construction, 4" thick blended Talalay latex soft comfort layer + med-firm pocket coil innerspring support layer, and all-natural fibers in any quilting and ticking. Any suggestions of specific mattresses that meet this criteria?
I am in a rural area with no mattress stores, so I’ll be shopping 100% online. I am willing to pay for high quality materials.
Some info on how I arrived at the above criteria:
Our current mattress is old, cheap foam, and completely worn out. My two biggest issues are that I sleep hot and have shoulder and hip pain from pressure when side sleeping. It seems a thick soft comfort layer will be critical. I arrived at 4" because my hip to waist distance is 3.5". Blended Talalay looks to be high quality, breathable, and I like the resilience when shifting positions. As for the core, we like the feel of hybrid innerspring mattresses we have slept on in the past. Medium-firm support seems like it would be a good balance to a thick, soft comfort layer. My husband and I are both medium-weight people: I am 5’3", 150lbs, hip heavy. He is 5’9", 175lbs. I am primarily a side sleeper. He is primarily a back sleeper. But we both shift throughout the night.
Now that I have determined my ideal mattress criteria, how should I find a specific mattress online? Mattress websites are so plentiful and full of marketing hype it feels overwhelming to navigate. I would love some specific suggestions of mattresses!
It should never be more than 2 inch Talalay. This comes from the people in Connecticut who owned Global Talalay. Your decision should be the firmness of that 2 inch topper. Soft, medium, firm. They feel very different. Just make sure you have a firm mattress under it. Good luck.
This is interesting! I have serious hip pain and tested a 3" talalay topper to be most forgiving. Is that discouraged? Does it give out too and break down too quickly? Of course the buying process is so overwhelming I haven’t bought anything yet.
Better to go with 2 inches. You get minimal support with 3. It also depends on what you have under it. I have a firm mattress with 2 inches of Talalay. It’s perfect for me. The right amount of support and cushioning for my sore hip. Good luck.
Can you explain this a bit more? It seems many go with a 3" topper above 8" coils. I was leaning toward two 2" layers above coils. It’s hard to know what configuration is best and why. It does seem like most non-DIY hybrid beds come in 8" coil w/ 3" latex topper configuration, so it makes me wonder why that is and if a different configuration is better or worse in general, or depending on the situation (side vs back vs stomach sleepers, light vs average vs heavy weight sleepers, etc).
The reasons for that change based on your desired feel and weight/needs.
For most people a 3" layer of soft dunlop on top of springs is perfect. Dunlop latex has quite a supportive secondary ild rating, meaning it feels soft to the touch but it doesn’t give in too much to become unsupportive.
If you weigh more than about 210 pounds though, that’s when a little firmness is needed to have support. At that point id go 1" of medium and then 2" of soft. That’s assuming you’re using the same base spring. You don’t want the soft part to be too thick or else youll be sinking out of alignment, and if you weigh more you’re pushing into the bed harder.
Then, if you weigh much more than that say 235-270 pounds, there’s nothing you can do with the layers to add any support. You have to go with a more resilient spring system.
For example the 15.5g spring system by texas pocket springs feels good to me at 5’11" 210 pounds, but if i got up to 235 pounds i would not be using that, i would use their 14.75g firm spring.
Appreciate this! I’m not sure latex is gonna work out for me long-term since toppers have short trial periods or are non-returnable altogether. This 19-22 ILD topper hasn’t been very forgiving for my shoulder, whereas our extra plush innerspring mattress has never given me problems. If my wife wasn’t having hip and low back issues, I’d stick with what we have til the wheels fell off lol. She’s seen solid improvement in hip and back pain with the 19-22 ILD topper, so she’s good with it and I am not. I’m likely looking at other options. In the end, she just wants something firmer and has expressed sleeping great on a medium-firm innerspring mattress we got from Texas Mattress Makers (TMM). I can’t do medium-firm, prefer to have better top layers than most innerspring mattresses, and the set we trust (TMM) doesn’t do returns.
Might be time to revisit memory foam. I need pressure relief for this left shoulder more than anything, and would rather sleep a bit more warm or have the bed last a shorter period compared to latex than struggle to sleep due to shoulder pain I’ve never had prior. We’ll see what happens!