So I posted in April and then in May about our experiences ordering a hybrid latex/pocket coil mattress from Select Sleep Mattress in Union City, CA. We’ve previously owned a few conventional pillow-tops that broke down quickly, and also had a mattress from European Sleepworks that was comfortable for me but too soft for DH. European Sleepworks specializes in hybrid pocket (and microcoil) mattresses topped the latex, but they are limited in how much they will split firmness levels. DH and I have the not uncommon problem of needing different firmness levels. He’s about 160lb, I’m about 108 and have been diagnosed with fibro and tend to have a lot of issues with pressure points. Select Sleep Center’s showroom is less “fancy” than European Sleepworks, but they actually build them in the back and offer a lot of customization options and also offer memory and blended latex as well as all natural latex, and they offer an organic cotton/wool cover. They offer a six month comfort exchange so you can swap out any of the layers for free, including the base coil layer. They don’t carry talalay in stock, but when I tried out their mattresses in the show room the soft dunlop felt fairly comfortable, so we ended up ordering a split base European pocket coil layer (mine medium, DH’s firm) and the tops layers are two inches of medium/firm dunlop topped by two inches of plush dunlop, covered in the organic cotton/wool cover. They offered me a bit of a discount and the whole thing was $1700, plus $50 for delivery.
We’ve now slept on it for about a month and the good news is that DH loves his side and is getting zero back pain, despite the fact that I selected it for him. We have no side to side motion transmission. I feel fairly comfortable if I sleep on my back, but I really prefer to sleep on my side and I’m getting too many pressure points (shoulders, hips, knees) if I sleep on my side, plus I miss that “floating feeling” that I got both with a new pillowtop and with the the soft talalay on the European sleepworks mattress. I called Don at Select Sleep Mattress yesterday and he was very nice. He offered to let me try switching to two layers of soft dunlop, but I have a strong sense that I just prefer having a really soft talalay layer on top, so he is ordering a two inch layer of ultrasoft talalay for my side only. The natural talalay is slightly more expensive ($75) so I’ll pay for the upgraded material cost, but they won’t charge to take apart the cover and reassemble the layers, and after it comes in I can try both the plush talalay (14 ild) over the soft dunlop over the pocket coil, and compare it with the soft talalay over the medium dunlop, and see which I like better in the showroom. I can’t say again I how great they have been to work with, and how glad I am that we went with someone local. They can pick up and deliver it if I want, but since I have an expedition I will probably transport it myself since I want to go down to the showroom again anyway. They have the latex layers in a separate cover from the pocket coil base (kind of like the duxiana system), so I don’t need to transport the heavier piece with the pocket coils.
I do think it’s interesting how different the feel of the talalay is from the dunlop. DH likes the firmer resilient feel of the dunlop, but for people with fibro or who just very sensitive I think there can be a real benefit to the talalay.
