My husband and I just bought a Tuft and Needle 10" mattress, and we’ve been having trouble sleeping on it. We’re both side sleepers - I’m 5’8", 140 pounds, with wide hips/shoulders and a narrow waist, and he’s 5’10", 160 pounds, and slim/muscular. Both of us keep waking up during the night on this mattress, and I’ve had pretty bad hip and shoulder pain from it. Obviously it’s too firm for us (though worse for me than for him), but we’d like to try softening it up with a topper before returning it.
This is a little tricky, however, because my husband has major skin sensitivities. The memory foam topper we had on our old bed made him break out in eczema all over his body - poor guy! (We’ve got an allergy encasement around the Tuft and Needle mattress right now, and it seems to work pretty well. We actually bought from T&N because we read that they go light on the toxic chemicals.) Anyway, anything memory foam is out, as is anything treated with harsh chemicals. We’re also a little nervous about latex, mainly because we’ve never used it before and don’t know how my husband’s skin will react - though as far as we know, he isn’t currently sensitive to latex products. And, of course, the topper also needs to be soft enough to accommodate my very curvy, side-sleeping self. Any thoughts about what materials we might look for in a topper? We’re willing to spend a little more on it, since we got such a good deal on the mattress.
The choice of material in a topper would be a personal preference more than anything else so I can’t really help with this but post #3 here and the topper guidelines it links to along with your own personal testing on different types of materials to find out which materials you tend to prefer should help you choose a topper that has the best chance of success … or at least the lowest risk. It also includes a link to a list of the better online topper sources I’m aware of.
If each of you have a very different body type and have different needs and preferences in terms of PPP then it may also be worth considering different toppers on each side of your mattress. For those who like how it feels (and not everyone does so I would test some mattresses that use different types and firmness levels of latex in the comfort layers to get a sense of what different types and firmness levels of latex feel like) … latex can make a good choice because it has properties that can be both soft and contouring and more “supportive” than other types of foam at the same time.
Their polyfoam is CertiPur certified but that would also be true for almost all the polyfoam that was manufactured in North America so if you are OK with the polyfoam that they use then you would probably be fine with any other polyfoam topper that was CertiPur certified or made in North America in a suitable firmness level. If you do decide to use polyfoam I would also make sure that it was a good quality and durable material as well which would be in the range of 1.8 lb density or higher (Tuft & Needle uses 1.8 - 2.0 lb polyfoam) depending on your weight.
We did! We got the 2" “soft” PureGreen natural latex topper from sleeponlatex.com. (Luckily it fit under the allergy encasement we had on our mattress, so we don’t have to worry about any skin issues.:)) Even with the topper, the T&N 10" is still a firm mattress - certainly firmer than any I’ve ever slept on before. But we’re not waking up in pain anymore, so it all worked out!
Tuft and Needle is a great company - their customer service really deserves all those 5-star reviews. I wish they offered more options, though. I can’t imagine their 10" mattress fitting “the most people with the most comfort,” as they advertise - it caused my husband and me serious back pain, and neither of us has ever had a problem with a mattress before! Maybe a heavier stomach/back sleeper could handle it, but if you’re a medium-sized side sleeper like us, you might need a topper. For us it was still worth it, though.
