Mattress Forum

What to do? We can't afford to replace the mattress and quite frankly why? So we turned to researching toppers to help us sleep through the night.

The question became, what topper and how do we weed through all the untrue and ridiculous marketing that all these companies throw at us. Realize that there is no governing body telling these companies that they can't claim this or that. You have to take the time to find the truth.

I personally spent hours trying to figure this out and here's what I found...

Gel toppers are the newest and best choice for sure. The gel allows heat to dissipate and overall you should have a more comfortable sleep as the memory is better and lasts longer as well. However, there is a big gotcha. You need to actually look at a picture of the gel foam you are buying. The words, gel infused and gel memory foam are used across the board. All gel toppers are infused as it isn't 100% gel. There is traditional foam infused with gel in every case. Here are the differences:

     1) Look at the picture for dots or beads as opposed to a swirl of gel. The dots or beads will be blue and the swirl is as well. The beads are a first generation attempt that does not work well. The beads absorb the heat and actually traps it within the topper for extended periods so beads and dots are not cooler and not the way to go. The swirl is a latest generation (gen2 if you will) and is the true way to enjoy the benefit of this new technology. You should clearly see full swirls of blue throughout and NO DOTS!!! The swirl allows it to cool effectively...

     2) Look at density rating. The higher the density, the longer it will last and the better the memory overall. For example, I am 6'3" and weigh about 250 pounds. My wife is 5' something and weighs a little over 100 pounds. So we needed a high density topper to be able to help us both sleep comfortably and without her rolling into the pit that my body creates.

     3) Thickness....2"-3" is most common. The thickness affects the softness of the feel . To me 2" and less is too firm and doesn't give the true benefit of having a topper at all. Unless of course your matress is way to soft and you need something to firm it up. Now for me, I want something that is a bit softer because of the fact that my mattress is too firm. 4" ,although I haven't tried it, gets reviews that say it's too soft for some. So with thickness I would bear in mind what your existing mattress feels like and what you are trying to achieve in softness.

     4) Smell. These toppers do smell like chemicals. All of them need time to ventilate and the best way I've found is to squish them around and break them in outside of at sleepytime. If it's winter, you may feel as though it's not getting rid of the smell. Please realize if you can't ventilate the room it's in with an open window how is it supposed to dissipate? Also if the room is small and the door is always closed, what do you think the result will be? One last note on smell. Although I can't substantiate this, I would always buy a topper from a quality manufacturer because if cheap material is used with no quality control, you may very well have a topper that DOES smell all the time. Read other people's experience with the smell.

Well that is about it. Remember, when you see an ad for a topper, the list of features is doctored with marketing lingo so do yourseld a favor and answer these 4 factors. Otherwise you will wind up with a topper you don't want and instead of increasing your sleep time, you may actually decrease it due to the stress you'll feel while being angry lying on the topper you hate!!! Cost is key to all of us but sometimes you buy cheap and you get cheap. I'm not suggesting you have to buy the most expensive topper but be aware. After all, what is consistent nights of better sleep worth to you? To me, it's everything. If I don't sleep good, the rest of my day get's really ugly!!!! Good luck and sleep well...