I think we need a new mattress. We’ve only had this one five years, damn it! But it’s the kind you can’t flip (they were all like that when I bought it, and they had the nerve to call it a “feature”) and the dip under my boyfriend has gotten quite bad. I know this because he said, “Hey, can we at least rotate it?” and I fell for it and now my back hurts all the time.
I got one of those memory foam mattress toppers to see if it would help (there was a nice one that had a huge discount on Amazon) and it’s, I dunno, okay. I guess it helps, some. We can’t go on like this for too much longer, though.
So I was looking idly at the Tempurpedic stuff. Consumer Reports says you either love it or hate it. A lot of online reviews do seem to suggest that some couples have the issue that the man loves it and the woman hates it, probably because the thing is designed for a person of a certain weight? And the women aren’t heavy enough to get the supportive layers? Also, they’re supposed to sleep hot, and the memory foam topper does indeed sleep hot.
But if it’s good, I want it. There seem to be a lot of very satisfied customers. It’s more expensive than the traditional mattresses, but good lord, we spend more time there than on any other piece of furniture. If it would help me get a good night’s sleep without my back hurting, yes please. (Doubleplus good if it lasts longer than five years.)
They do have a 90 day guarantee, which is fantastic, but I don’t think that extends to all the other stuff you probably need - I bet you need their sheets or at least their mattress pad? So there are surely some sunk costs even if we decide to send it back.
Also, it’s freaking impossible to tell the differences between the models from their website.
I hated it. It was murder on my back, to the point where I was having to go sleep on the couch, and I slept hot on it, except for my feet, which are always cold.
Be VERY careful about the guarantee. My husband was the one who decided that he was going to buy a new mattress, and there was indeed a 90 day guarantee…but it was only for exchanges, not for refunds. So when we exchanged our mattress, we had to eat a several hundred dollar loss.
Is Tempurpedic just an expensive memory foam mattress, or is it something else? We got this mattress from Overstock.com a few months ago and LOVE it. We also got a 3" memory foam mattress topper to make the whole thing thicker, and so we could replace the top every few years. Might be another option.
Pepper Mill hasn’t actually slept on a Memory Foam mattress, but she hates them. She says she sinks in so far, and so form-fittingly, that she feels as if the mattress is trying to engulf and eat her.
You might want to go to a mattress store and try one out first.
It’s the “original” memory foam mattress. I refuse to even consider buying one because there’s a graphic always contained in their ads that says, “Certified SPACE technology”, and that’s just too goofy for words.
I tried out a Tempurpedic about 6-7 years ago and sent it back. I think we had to pay shipping one way, so we were out a little bit of money, but whatever we were out was outlined to us before we bought it so it was no big deal. We had no problems at all returning it.
I hated the thing because it’s HARD. I like super soft mattresses, and Tempurpedic is absolutely not that. I felt like I was sleeping on a wooden box. Husband liked it slightly more than I did, but he still didn’t want to keep it.
I was bummed, I’d heard such good things about them I was all ready to love it and I just couldn’t. We slept on it for 2 or 3 weeks before returning it, so we gave it a good try. It’s just not for us.
I adore mine. My in-laws have one in their spare room, so I’d slept on it before.
So when my old mattress was just too hard on my husband’s back, we went and bought one of these. And at first, I hated it. Turns out there’s sort of a break-in period, and the mattress is really hard for the first few weeks. It was definitely not as soft as either my in-laws’ mattress or even my memory foam topper.
Now I love it; my back feels better than it has in years. They’re not kidding about not feeling your partner move either, which is a huge bonus to those of us with different schedules. I don’t feel engulfed by mine, but I don’t sink all that far into it either. They do tell you to buy their mattress pad, as it’s stretchy to accommodate the mattress’ stretch.
But I’ve since seen that they’ve come out with a new model, which has a really soft layer on top. I suspect that feels more like my old topper did, and I sort of wish that we’d waited until that came out, because I still miss that top layer of sort. I don’t find that it sleeps particularly hot.
My wife and I often sleep at a friend’s house. They inherited a Tempurpedic and used it for the guest room. I had the same problem as Athena. It was like sleeping on a board for me. It occurred to me that they may have different varieties, some of which are harder, but I never really checked that out. I made my friend switch back to the other mattress.
There are other Memory foam mattresses which are purportedly softer, but they aren’t usually sold with the money back guarantee. Don’t buy anything you can’t send back.
I never slept on a Tempurpedic mattress, but I do have three 3" “memory foam” toppers on three of the beds in my house. The mattresses are all decent, and the toppers are like heaven on earth for my wife and I. Guest like them too.
The toppers are WAY cheaper than an actual Tempurpedic mattresses.
We got one 2 years ago and love it. It does take some getting used to but I sleep better than I ever have and my husband wakes up without the aches and pains he used to.
Hidden costs - none. We got the CA King size so sheets can get spendy but we buy them from normal stores.
Things I know about visco-elastic memory foam (Tempur-Pedic is the most famous brand) and mattresses
[ul]
[li]Memory foam comes in different densities, usually described as weights in pounds from 3 to 7 or so. (You can get samples of some brands.) Generally but not absolutely, more weight means it feels harder when you first lie down on it, it holds up better over the years, and it costs more. You might like one particular memory foam a lot and hate others, even of the same brand or the same weight. Tempur-Pedic has a range of weights, by the way, so if you’ve tried one, you haven’t tried them all.[/li]
[li]Even the most expensive memory-foam mattresses, like Tempur-Pedic, only have a top layer of memory foam over a base layer of cheaper, non-memory stuff. The top layer is rarely more than 3" or 4" thick (though Tempur-Pedic’s most expensive models have up to about 6.5"). I honestly don’t believe you get more benefit from a whole Tempur-Pedic mattress than from just a separate topper --* provided the mattress you put the topper on isn’t already misshapen.*[/li]
[li]The whole point of memory foam is that it gets softer with warmth and then springs back into shape; thus, your body’s warmth helps it soften to mold around you very precisely. If you put a thick mattress pad, featherbed, or “pillow-top” on over it, you lose the conforming property and might as well be lying on (cheaper) non-memory foam.[/li]
[li]Memory foam is a “closed cell” foam, meaning that the little bubbles that make it up are all encapsulated. Thus, air doesn’t circulate through it as well as, say, cotton. Many people find this uncomfortable, as in too hot or too sweaty. I put cotton sheets on over it and find it plenty breathable for my taste.[/li]
[li]Any foam or fiber non-spring mattress, whether a $7000 Tempur-Pedic or an $80 cotton futon, will help isolate movement between two people on the same mattress. A platform bed rather than a spring frame also helps. Air mattresses (like the Sleep Number ones) are worse than spring mattresses in this regard.[/li]
[li]Mattress makers and sellers are NOT reliable sources of information about mattresses. Many of their claims are pure hokum, and you should trust your own powers of rational thinking. Beware of anyone who insists, for instance, that you MUST have a particular boxspring or foundation under a particular mattress for it to “work” as a “system”. If you cut off the outer fabric, you’ll see that even expensive boxsprings are basically… boxes. Many are even mostly cardboard.[/li]
[li]No one mattress is right for everyone, and there’s no formula to determine which kind is right for any one person. The one that’s best for you, that’s healthiest for your back etc., is the one you find most comfortable over time. Unfortunately this is hard to determine without sleeping a few nights on various choices. [/li]
[li]The real value in an expensive mattress is a good warranty – being able to return it if you don’t find it comfortable in a few weeks, and being able to get your money back if it wears out in a few years. But I have yet to see a mattress warranty without several semi-devious loopholes – read the fine print.[/li]
[li]If you and your “sleep partner” don’t agree on what constitutes a comfortable mattress, consider making a hybrid: Two extra-long twins side-by-side equal one king, dimensions-wise. You can get two base layer pieces of different densities, put a topper or pad on it, dress it up in sheets, and each get what you like in one mostly integrated whole. (If you find you have problems with the two halves sliding apart, for… any reason, you can put a rug grip underneath.)[/li][/ul]
I have had a foam mattress for over 5 years. I love it. My wife said I quit snoring when we got it. I never heard me snore, so it could not be true.
But I like it. It also is not a good environment for the minute buggies that live in our regular mattresses.
I am fit and active, if that means anything. All spring mattresses feel like total crap since sleeping on a Tempurpedic. Even have Tempurpedic pillows.
I have a thick memory foam mattress topper (to counteract my chintzy mattress), and it retains heat like no other. I had to take it off this summer. Is this a problem with most/all memory foam? If so, that may be a consideration.
We have Tempurpedic. They produce several different grades of firmness, so if you go shopping for a T-pedic, make sure you try out all the different grades they offer to see which one best suits you.
Apart from being comfortable, another great benefit is that it’s much easier to avoid disturbing your partner if you get up during the night; movements on your side of the bed don’t get transferred to the other side of the bed. They demonstrate this in the commercial with a glass of wine on one side of the bed, and a woman jumping up and down on the other side; the wine doesn’t spill. It’s the real deal.
Imagine a 12 inch deep beanbag as a mattress … schlorp. I have a friend who converted every bed in their house into tempurpedic, I had to go sleep on the sofa.
The bitch is, my german friend has some sort of funky foam mattress that is hard as a rock and wonderful to sleep on for me [there are 2 types of back injury people, those who need intensely soft beds and those who need to sleep on rock] and I would love to find his mattress in the US but every single foam mattress we have tried is squooshy =(
