Lets talk mattresses...
 

I need a new bed. I wake up and feel I was ran over by a truck and I think its my mattress. Are the Sleep Number beds all they are cracked up to be? What about the Temperpedic "Nasa developed" foam mattress? Or should I just go with a quality name brand with pillow top?

I've been splitting time between a futon w/2.5" of memory foam on top (separate topper thing from costco) and a "real" memory foam mattress (not Temperpedic, but a good clone). While my favorite sleep memories are still of my 70's era waterbed, the memory foam mattress is very nice. Much better than the last expensive "pillow top" mattress/box spring combination.

your mileage and/or sleep may vary

Go try 'em out. What I have now is an upper end mattress set (cannot remember what brand) I picked out by trying them out several years ago. When we were looking for a mattress for one of my children I tried a Tempurpedic. When I need another mattress, that is probably what I will purchase.

She still has you sleeping on the couch?...excuse me, Futon???;)

I have one of those foam mattress (no springs) and I think is great no more back pains.

Since the divorce I have been sleeping on an air mattress on my bedroom floor. When it starts to feel too soft I unscrew the cap and blow in it till it feels good.

Simple, cheap and effective.

I just got a spring air mattres. Well worth the 2K becuase now I do not wake up at 3AM wracked with pain and hobble out the the couch. It is seriously the best thing I have ever laid on. It has that foam like Juan is talking about in the 6 inch pillow top. for the first 30 seconds it feels too soft then its all good and you cant even feel your body its so comfortable. I just went to a mattress place and laid on every single one and did not look at price or brand and my wife and I picked the same one.

$2K? My air mattres cost me less than $50 at target.

I cannot describe how nice it is to sleep on this mattress. I wake up and my body does not hurt like it did on satan ( the old one). That memory foam is awesome stuff. We did the air mattres thing when we were moving, hated it.

We had great luck at the Mattress Firm store - went with a Sealy (firm with a pillow top - about $900) - the darn thing is so comfortable, the kids don't want to sleep in their beds, they are always climbing in with us!

I think the real key to comfort is with the pillow(s). Some like flat, others fluffy, still others go with down. It has been my experience that the pillow dictates the sleep comfort. When I am on the road for more than 2 nights, I bring my pillow. It has provided the best night sleep when out of town.

nope. moved out. and have friends.

had a very good ~$900 serta with medium coils and a pillow top that was VERY cumfy. too bad that one left with the girlfriend. now i bought myself the top of the line ikea bed with a nice frame and put a serta featherbed cover on that and it is quite nice. i still probably prefer a traditional mattress set like the serta though.....i agree with just laying on 1000s of them until you either find the one that works or just give up.....

My Sleep Number has been 85 for almost 5 years. I wouldn't have it any other way. :)

Randy

I also have the Select Comfort Sleep Number bed.

If anyone stole it I would have it replaced before nightfall.

Not much not to like - except the pricing - but when you consider you spend over a third of your life in bed?

awwwwww.... he beat me to the couch line.

Also consider the Shifman line. Really well-made stuff. I'm not sure about "memory foam" but natural latex foam is used as padding on most high-end mattresses and it's very nice.

http://www.shifmanmattresses.com

$2500 Stearns and Foster. I can't imagine anything better (and I don't have to roll over and blow it up).

www.sleepworks.com I love it.

Stupid mattress joke:

Where can mistress be found in the dictionary? Between mattress and Mr.

One thing I know for sure. It is virtually impossible to compare pricing/benefits between different mattresses. Manufacturers will make the same mattress for different companies. The covering will look different, the names are different as well as the price points, but it is the same mattress.

Great 'scam'!! -You could be paying $2K for a name brand mattress and then go down to Walmart and pay $1K for what could be the very same one internally. No real way to tell IMO.

The other big mattress joke. Guy asks the salesperson what the main difference between the one costing $2K and the other mattress @1K? ..........The salesperson replies.....Oh that's easy!!....$1K !!!!

the $2K version is more nutritious...it will feed the sales guy twice as long!

Like a previous poster said, it may just be your pillow. I went from sleeping like a rock to waking up with lower back pain over the course of about 5 years. I attribute most of it to getting older. Until you have it happen to you night after night you have no idea how miserable the thought of going to bed can be. I went to look at both the Air Mattress and the memory foam mattress to decide which one to go with. Before I purchased one, someone suggested getting memory foam pillow. Bought one at Target for around $25.00. Since then the back aches have disappeared. Apparently these pillows give your neck better support. I would try this first before I went with a different mattress.

I did quite a bit of "laying down" research before I plopped down the cash. The chain matress stores suck and the people that work there suck - high pressure, low ethics. I went to a Foleys and tested beds for about 2 hours one eve. There were a lot of beds that were average. The high end SF was light years better. The only thing I found better was a Dux bed from Sweden. It was about $5K and I thought way ahead of even the SF - just couldn't play that game.

never have...never will.

but that's a different thread :p

Walmart? Man, that's quality entertainment when you live in a rural community!!

We bought one of the memory foam mattresses (Supplepedic, not Tempurpedic) 3.5 years ago. It is great. We got the memory foam pillows at the same time. It is very comfortable, and we both love it. Now we dread hotel beds when we are on vacation. Even in high end hotels (Hyatt Regency, Ritz Carlton, etc.) the beds are no where near as comfortable as the memory foam ones. We take our memory foam pillows with us, and that helps some.

The mattress we bought has 4.5 inches of memory foam. We liked it much better then the 3 inch memory foam model from Tempurpedic. It did cost almost $2000, but it has a 30 year warantee. I think even if it only lasts 10 years it's more then worth the money.

We bought a ComfortAir Cerulean last year after looking at the Select Comfort. The ComfortAir is the "same" bed but without the sleep number thingy, it uses a "up/down" button to control the amount of air in the bed. We bought the bed online from nationwidemattress.com and got a 90 day "in-home trial". We are very pleased with the bed and we control the firmness on our own side of the bed and my wife and I love it. We bought my grandfather one and he's very happy with it. The ComfortAir is about 1/2 the cost of the Select Comfort (they have to pay for those expensive infomercials).

I bought a SelectComfort about five years ago, and it has been just fine. Feels as good today as it did new. Only two minor problems so far: (1) The base/box unit was not *quite* wide enough (-1/2 inch maybe) to sit correctly on the sleigh bed frame, so I had to install some wood slats ($20 @ Home Depot). (2) About three years ago, I could not get the pump to respond to the wireless remote. Called customer service, and after a few minutes of diagnostics over the phone, they concluded the pump had died and immediately shipped me out a replacement.

Otherwise, I have been quite happy with it; paid about $850 as I recall, and would absolutely buy another.

I have been sleeping on a Select Comfort for 3 years now, and I love it.
My wife has a back condition and it has help her considerably. Worth the $$$$$$.

The only "problem" I've had with our wireless remote is that I have two Select Comforts. One in our master bedromm and another Kingsize iin our guest room. Both of them seem to be on the same wireless channel so when I turn the pump on in our room, it also operates the pump in the guest room.

I'm thinking there may be a way to change this, with a chip or something, but I just haven't bothered. The guest room rarely gets used, so it really hasn't been an issue.

Randy

Maybe I'm missing something here. Seems to me that once you figure out how much air you like in the mattress, you could pretty much throw the remote away.

\
So true, around here the big hitters are over 55 points on product.

imagine paying $2k for a set that cost the retailer $600?!

Also, as a rule of thumb, the more you sleep on your side, the softer the bed needs to be..

rjp

Moses,

We kinda have a custom setup. Our Select Comfort in the master bedroom is in a waterbed frame. With the mattress aired up, it makes it a bit difficult to tuck the sheets in right, so I lower the setting to 20 or 25 and the sheets slip right on. Pump it back to 85 (Not quite so high on the wife's side) and the sheets get way tight. Kinda reminds me of my days living in the barracks in the Corps. You can bounce quarters off them things :D

Randy

Ah! I could have used something like that back in my waterbed days! What a pain changing sheets.

In the last 5 years Ive been through a Sterns & Foster pillowtop, an firm Serta, a Select Comfort, and finally a Seally pillowtop w/memory foam. The only thing I havent tried is the fullmemory foam, and after my Select Comfort experience, I will not buy another non conventional mattress again.

The S&F was too soft, the Serta was too hard, and I must be the only person ever to buy a Select Comfort and hate it.

Luckily for me, my back is one part of my body that has never been damaged. After 10 months on the Select Comfort, I was getting less than 3hrs of sleep a night and waking up in severe pain. No setting would work for longer than a week, and customer service couldnt help me at all. I know this is not the norm for these beds. Most people really like them and I know that many NFL trainers provide them to their players. They are supposed to be incredible, but mine was absolutely terrible after less than a year. I think the one I had was the middle grade model 4000, maybe I needed the pillowtop. :confused:

My current bed is a Seally pillowtop that has memory foam in the top. Its a very comfortable bed. Ive only had it fora few months, but Im really happy with it.

My experience too. Try a "neck pillow" and you may not need a new mattress.

It is seriously the best thing I have ever laid on.

Don't get out much, do ya? Now this Japanese chick I've been seeing off and on...

Great info guys thanks!

We have a Cal-King Temperpedic and I fricking hate that thing with a passion. That piece of chit cost more than my budget beater BMW. My wife likes it, but I like my sleeping bag and the dirt more. I definatley should have sent it back before the trial period was up and gotten a sleep # bed. And in case anyone else does go purchase one, if it aint comfortable after 1 week, it's not going to be, so return it and get your money back.

SelectComfort/SleepNumber here as well; the wife and I both have some back/neck pain issues and this was a tremendous improvement from our previous conventional bed.