I was polishing up a long, detailed post about my shopping for a new mattress…and then I hit the wrong key and it all went poof. So here’s a shorter one instead.
My wife and I are currently sleeping on a very plain, traditional innerspring mattress that I’ve had for 14 years now. The label on it says “Simmons Beautyrest Luxury Firm”; I’m not sure of the specs. It’s not horrible, but not especially comfortable either. Dips a bit in the middle (though less than you might expect). Probably safe to say it’s time for a change.
I’ve been reading tutorial pages and searching threads here; have also been looking at Sleep Like The Dead (pretty helpful) and Consumer Reports (less helpful), and even scanning Amazon reviews. I’m having trouble determining what we should rule out, and what options we should then investigate.
Here’s some basics. We’re both somewhat tall (I’m 6’3", she’s a bit shorter) and both over 270 pounds. I’m a side/stomach sleeper; she’s a side/back sleeper. One of her big concerns is sleeping hot (I’m a bit of an oven, it seems). I’m particularly interested in durability. My nightmare scenario is that I spend a bunch of money on a mattress that, at first, is much more comfortable than what I’m used to; then, once I’m good and spoiled, it starts to break down, and by year 3 or 5 it’s actually worse than what I’ve got now.
This nightmare is made more vivid by the fact that I’ve done enough research to find credible-sounding horror stories about virtually every single sleep product that has ever been sold to humankind. Heck, even on this site–full as it is of people taking great care to make the best possible choices–there are long threads dedicated to continuing problems with manufacturers, threads where deals went bad when retailers got flaky or went out of business, threads where people bought a good bed that turned out to be the wrong one for them, and so forth.
Basically I’ve learned enough so far that my head is spinning, and my worrying has kicked into overdrive.
Now I do have a couple strong endorsements from family members to guide me. My brother and his wife have had a Tempur-Pedic for four years now and still love it; my parents have had one of the Sealy Optimum series for a year now and are very pleased. Obviously, those recommendations run quite contrary to the opinion of this site; I imagine replies to this thread might point me in somewhat different directions.
I will be grateful for any and all thoughtful input.