Getting a married woman into bed...

SeñorAmor

My wife, that is.

Our mattress is old and terrible and we need a new one. Right now we have a pillow top that's doing neither of us any favors for any bedtime activities. It has sunk on both sides as is the norm for an old mattress.

I'm considering a memory foam mattress as I hear they're an absolute delight to sleep on, but I have zero knowledge of mattresses and mattress-related things.

Any suggestions on how I should proceed?

Thanks in advance!

Dehumanized

Go out to bed shops and try out beds. Don't skimp, you spend too much of your life sleeping to deprive yourself.

Oh, and memory foam/sleep number beds are terrible for sexytimes; your domicile probably has all kinds of alternate surfaces that are more suitable, though. Just keep that in mind, I guess?

notmetalenough

Also, all mattress products have completely different names at different outlets. This is on purpose and is designed to keep you from doing comparison shopping. So, I guess, good luck?

Entriech

We purchased a new mattress approximately seven months ago. We stayed away from memory foam as they seemed a bit more costly, and we were warned on account of the material's potential for causing overheating (less breathable).

We spent a night doing it, and just went to mattress stores, and laid on mattresses til we found one that was still comfortable after an extended 10 minutes of laying on it. I'd take even more time if possible. Then it was just a question of waiting out the salesperson until they offered a deal in a price range I was happy paying. A box spring/mattress combo initially offered to us at 2300$ magically sank to 1200$ when he 'discovered' a mismatch box/mattress promotion. I then asked him for another 100$ off, and we bought at 1100$. I think I probably could have gone lower in hindsight. It is worth noting the bed that was delivered was not mismatched.

Comparison shopping is difficult, as every store will have its own name for each level/brand of mattress. It is difficult as well getting information about the internals on a mattress. Even with things such as coil count, they won't tell you the gauge of the wire, or how tightly the coils are wound.

The salesperson will attempt to get a spending range out of you, don't give it to them. This is an adversarial process, and the less information they have from you the better it will go.

The best thing you can do is try them out, and don't buy until you are 100%, it is in your price range, and you're not feeling pressured. If you're anything less than certain, just walk away and try again a week later someplace else.

Akilae

Agree with Dehumanized. Memory foam is horrible for the other type of bedtime activity couples enjoy engaging in. It offers no "bounce-back"...

Other than that, all other comments are pretty spot on. The mattress business is a big huge black box operation that makes comparison shopping impossible. Just go with the mattress that you and the missus feel most comfortable with, and negotiate the heck out of the price. Cut them deep, cause profit margins are huge. Be ready to walk out the door laughing at their first price offer.

Bowen

The overheating is usually caused by foam mattresses in general. I'd wager the sleep number bed might be a better investment than foam. I was considering getting one in the past.

Hevach

notmetalenough wrote: »

notmetalenough wrote: »

Also, all mattress products have completely different names at different outlets. This is on purpose and is designed to keep you from doing comparison shopping. So, I guess, good luck?

Also lets them get away with what looks like outrageous price match guarantees.

I hate memory foam. A lot. Not just for the sex issue, just do not like laying on one at all. Even worse with the memory foam pillows. I know I'm in a minority with this, but I also know I'm not completely alone. What I'm saying is, you might not either. This, along with the problems of comparison shopping and matching what you see on a website to what you buy in a store adds up to the only real advice I think you need before going mattress shopping: Lay on it before you buy it, preferably on a frame comparable to what you'll have it on.

Bowen

Nah the foam is weird, you're right. Sure it may align your spine in the proper format, but it feels like having one pillow on semi-sunk earth. I find them hard to sleep with. Plus the pillows especially get hot. That's uncomfortable.

Test them out for 10 minutes before you decide, definitely.

Cobell

Another idea for memory foam (beyond trying it out at a store), is that you could buy a pillow and try it out on your existing bed. It'll give you a good idea what to expect. You don't necessarily have to go full out with tempurpedic for the pillow as well. There are cheaper versions out there (though the tempurpedic ones are denser so more solid feeling).

Some people love them; some people hate them. It's really best to try it out.

azith28

I hate matress shopping. 10 minutes of laying on a matress might tell you if you hate it, but its not going to tell you how your going to feel after waking up on it. Memory foam is hard to gauge...the newer versions are suppose to be alot more breathable then older ones, so the overheating problem isnt always as bad as it sounds.

mts

we have a memory foam topper, and i can't stand it. it was nice at first, but it doesn't give me a ton of support and my back ends up hurting. though i do have a memory foam ergo pillow that i love.

so ymmv

sometimes costco has mattress for super cheap. i had one for a long time and it was great

Essee

Screw all y'all, memory foam is awesome. It's the only kind of mattress that guarantees I won't wake up sore and fall asleep more easily, whereas with others it's a crapshoot (sometimes I find them comfortable and wake up on them with no problems, sometimes I don't). I don't think it's THAT bad for sexytimes, personally, but then again the person I'm having sexytimes with gets overheated easily no matter what type of mattress/sheets/etc. we use (whereas I rarely do). Also the mattress I love so much isn't 100% memory foam, so that probably helps. It does have some bounce. But I guess this basically just drives home that it's very dependent upon what you guys personally find comfortable. Basically, I wouldn't go with a mattress that doesn't move at all when you bounce on it (so a full memory foam mattress would be out), but beyond that I would just find something that seems to be comfortable when you lie on it for a long while, as suggested by several people.

Bobble

For your consideration, though this may not fall within the scope of your current shopping agenda: A platform bed frame to put the mattress on and skipping the box spring altogether.

As far as the mattress: I'm a very warm sleeper, so I avoided to foam. I got some kind of gel-column thing recently and it's been working nicely so far. Only a few weeks on it though, so even now I'm still figuring it out.

ceres

My husband doesn't like memory foam, so we went to the mattress store and tried everything and ended up with a Kingsdown, which has a ridiculous warranty and is honestly as nice as the memory foam *most* of the time.

phoo

I had back problems, so I shopped around the different *types* of beds. I settled on individually wrapped coils because although they are less supportive if you only sleep on your back, they would keep my spine straighter when sleeping on my stomach, compared to the normal coils that are wired together on a frame.

Memory foam was just not supportive enough, even the dense stuff. I thought it would be better with a firm mattress and a 2" topper, but it still hurt my back. I have sometimes considered latex because it can get firmer than memory foam, but it is still soft and is expensive.

I specifically stayed away from the pillow top mattresses because they merely have a layer of foam that is not easy to replace and the mattress is designed to function only on one side. Once the foam gets crushed and disintegrates after a couple years, the mattress will feel different. Instead I got a double sided mattress from a store here that specializes in them. It is very hard to find them in regular stores. In fact, Englander makes a special model just for this store. Yeah, you have to flip, but you get far far more life out of your mattress. And frequently these double sided mattresses are actually cheaper, even though they are still good. Mine was $750 for a queen and I didn't go for the cheapest.

I considered a sleep number bed, but aside from the very high price, I read reviews that said it doesn't work well for heavy people, especially if they like a softer bed. You may end up sleeping in a hole.

Artereis

There are a lot of products at Ikea that I don't like, but this mattress is amazing. Definitely worth trying one out.

Pure Din

One-sided mattresses have gotten a lot better since fire regulations (in the USA) have made it harder to get two sided mattresses. I bought a pillow-top mattress in 2010 and it is nothing like the pillowtop mattress I had before that, or even the one my boyfriend bought in 2008. It's also gotten a lot easier to buy larger sheets which is really important because if you're stretching the sheets to fit them over the bed you might be crushing the upper layers of foam.

Newtron

Somebody linked this around the time I was looking for a new mattress about a year or so back: http://mattressscam.com/

I didn't actually end up using it until this year (bought a hammock that year instead!), but it helped me make good decisions when I did (the stuff about warranties is especially true).

phoo

When I was looking for a mattress, I called several stores and visited 3. One of them was Mattress Depot which claim to be a discounter. They were SHADY. Their prices were not remotely discount compared to the local stores I went to and they were pushy.

Something I want to recommend is another store I checked out in my area which actually make their own mattresses. They don't advertise that they make their own, but they sell odd sized mattresses (marine, etc) so that may be a good clue. They sold name brands too, but you were able to choose from the models they made which were significantly less expensive. As a bonus, they could make you a custom mattress, though you weren't able to return it if you didn't like it.

The third store was also local rather than a chain. They specialized in double sided mattresses and also organic ones. Sure, it'd be darn spendy to get an organic one, but that also made the non-organic ones less popular and thus less expensive. I was able to find perfectly great mattresses for under 4 figures at both local stores.

I also noticed that all of the one sided mattresses (which all had pillowtops) were not only very expensive, but were universally super soft and squishy. That's great if you're made of jello, but I knew from experience it would hurt my back. It seems that a softer a bed is advertised to be, the more they'll ream you for it. Ok, so there's more materials to make it soft, but why not just buy your own topper which is easily replaceable as soon as it loses its squish?

Gdiguy

Newtron wrote: »

Somebody linked this around the time I was looking for a new mattress about a year or so back: http://mattressscam.com/

I didn't actually end up using it until this year (bought a hammock that year instead!), but it helped me make good decisions when I did (the stuff about warranties is especially true).

While most of the stuff on that site is true, it's presented in a bit more ominous tone than necessary... but yeah, every single store has its own model names with extremely slight differences, which enables them to have 'we price match anyone!' statements because no other store carries exactly the same thing.

However, most of the mattress stores (this is not necessarily true of a place like Sears/Macy's) will absolutely negotiate... the last three times I've been involved in buying mattresses (once for myself, once for gf's apt, once for my family at home), the place was either willing to price match what was basically the same model from online stores, or at least come very close (which was something like 50-60% of the price listed in the showroom).

As for memory foam, that's really something you need to try and see for yourself... my sister has one and absolutely loves it, whereas I can't stand even sitting on her bed because I feel like it's going to smother me. It seems to be a very much 'love or hate' kind of thing.

Horus

wow I recently purchased a bed (went from twin to queen) I spent about $400 for everything but I think its more competitive in Los Angeles. I like orthopedic. Make sure you see the color of the tags, anything that has colored tags.... USED/Remanufactured!!!

Also it takes time to break in a mattress, I had to flip mine around several times.

Now to find cheap 300thread sheets.

superhappypanda

I opted for a nice memory foam slightly medium firm mattress. Wound up adding a nice featherbed, pillows and a down comforter on top and sprung for some egyptian cotton sheets from Macy's. I chose the memory foam because my ex had the jimmy legs and would wake me up all the time and she usually kept weird hours and would wake me up whenever she would sit on the bed to get dressed and I wanted something that isolated a lot of movement from the other side of the bed. I do sometimes overheat but if I do, I've got a top sheet and a light blanket that I'll use if it's that warm out.

All in all, I absolutely love my bed, only problem is that now I have a hard time getting out of it in the morning because it's too damn comfy.

But yes, take a couple hours out of your weekend and spend time in the shop laying on them. I think I spent about 3 hours in total including the time to sign all the paperwork and setup delivery but it was well worth it not rushing into a mattress.

Beefjerky

My girlfriend and I had a rough time finding a mattress that worked for us. She had a double when I first moved in, which we upgraded to a used/queen($100). The queen ended up being too firm so we bought a memory foam topper for $200. That only lasted like 8 months before we had to get a new bed. We decided that it would be best to get a bed that was going to last. If I was going to spend a decent amount on a bed then I wanted something that lasts. We went to the Brick to have a look and it took us a good 2 hours trying out beds there. We got a eurotop pillow top mattress (i think a sealy) for $1200 on sale normally $1800. They also had a 6 month sleep guarantee allowing us to exchange for a different one. The pillow top ended up being crap. Both the sides ended up sinking in so that there was basically a hill in the middle of the bed, and this led us to learning all the little details on what's considered a defect. We eventually ended up buying a king size tempurpedic memory foam mattress and do not regret it, even with a price reduction it was $3000.

Some things to look out for when shopping around.

There are different qualities of memory foam(if you go this option). We went with tempurpedic because their type of memory foam is proprietary and one of the highest qualities. I sweat really easy and find I have little issue with our bed. My pillow protector on the other hand is drenched most times.

Read every damn inch of the warrenty. Without the sleep guarentee we would have been stuck with a $1200 piece of garbage because the warrenty specifically points out it has to sink more then 2 inches to be a defect. Warrenty is another reason we went with tempurpedic.

Take your time and look! Last thing you want is a bed that feels just as bad as your current one after forking out any money.

Good luck!

zepherin

Also you may want to wait till november because there are a lot of mattress sales during veterens day (nov 12) and presidents day.