After having purchased a Tempurpedic mattress in 2000 which slept rather warm, I recently bought a Tempurpedic Rhapsody Breeze.
Upon first lying down on the mattress, it was very cool. However, both my wife and I would wake in the wee hours literally sweating where in contact with the mattress. I finally returned the mattress and am now looking at a latex mattress.
How does latex handle body heat?
Hi Parton,
You can read a little more about the many factors that can contribute to the sleeping temperature of a mattress in post #2 here. This may have been due to the mattress protector or sheets and bedding or it could have been from how you interacted with the memory foam in the mattress itself.
You can also read more about gel memory foams in post #2 here and the other posts it links to and as you can see it’s not unusual at all for thermal conductive or phase change gel foams to have a temporary cooling effect for a short while and then become an insulator once temperatures equalize. the most effective way to regulate temperature over the course of the night is through ventilation and wicking moisture and humidity away from the body.
Latex is generally the most breathable of all the foam categories (memory foam, latex foam, polyfoam) and Talalay latex is usually more breathable than Dunlop so it tend to be the coolest of the foams but all foam is an insulator and has less ventilation than say natural fibers like wool. The other components of your mattress and bedding such as the cover and quilting, protector, and sheets along with the softness of the mattress and how far you sink into the mattress will also play a role in temperature even though the latex foam would be more breathable and tend to sleep cooler than memory foam or polyfoam.
Of course there is also a significant difference between latex and memory foam in terms of how they feel and perform (see post #2 here) so I would make sure that you test several latex mattresses to make sure you are comfortable with the differences between them and are clear about your preferences in terms of how they feel and perform.
Phoenix