Mattress Forum

Thanks; I am soooo ready for this mattress to arrive. No word yet on the delivery date, but I knew when I ordered it that it would take a few weeks.

The mattress isn't designed to be flippable, but you might have a good idea there. The only question is whether the half-inch of Simmons "EnergyFoam" that's on the bottom of the mattress would interfere with the spring action too much. It's described as "Heavy grade polyurethane foam" with "High ILD for firmness." And "Utilized below the coil unit to help create a supportive, durable foundation for the No-Flip mattress design." No actual specs, though, so who knows?

Can't hurt to try flipping the mattress, ifI don't like it right-side up, but I'll try it right-side up first.

I hope you find a mattress you like, Steve; keep us posted.

And the mattress came today! (The Simmons Tomahawk Firm from us-mattress.com.)

I got a call last week telling me that the delivery guys would be in my area this Wed. and that I'd get a confirmation call on Tuesday afternoon. Yesterday I got the call confirming delivery and telling me that the guys would be here between 11 am and 3 pm. They came at 2 pm, brought up the new mattress & foundation, were careful when going upstairs and around corners, washed the packaging grime off their hands before handling the unpackaged mattress & foundation, set everything up for me, & took away the old foundation.

There is a bit of new-mattress smell -- I'll have to hope the off-gassing goes away soon and/or doesn't kill what brain cells I have left -- but I've got a fan aimed at the bed now, and 2 windows open.

I'll report back after I've slept on the new mattress for a few days or so.

I hope I haven't made (yet another) mistake, but it's only been a week, so the mattress might still be OK after breaking in some more. When I change the sheets, I'll walk around on it, in the shoulder area, to see if I can get that foam softened a bit.

A couple factors contributing to the firmness could be:

(a) my allergen encasing is tighter on this mattress than on my old one, because this mattress is thicker (11"), so although there is still some give in the fabric, there's not quite as much; and

(b) this mattress top has the dreaded tufting buttons (which I knew about when I bought it; they're shown clearly in the photo at us-mattress.com). If I keep this mattress, I might remove those buttons, at least across the top third of the mattress, to see if that allows the foam to be more giving. I would think it would. If I'm on my side and my shoulder lands in one of those tuft-button dents, there can't be much foam to sink into.

If I slept only on my back, the mattress would probably be fine as is. It's that pesky side-sleeping that complicates things.

It used to be impossible for me to fall asleep on my back, but I've been trying to train myself to switch, and sometimes I can now fall asleep on my back. I position myself using Esther Gokhale's "stretch-lying" technique, and that helps. (For info about the Gokhale Method, see the website.)

Just my 2 cents.....

I've already done that kind of zoning -- with the latex toppers on my old mattress, and then after doing mattress surgery on my old mattress, and then while sleeping on just my toppers (some zoned) after ditching my old mattress. It didn't work well enough, which is why I bought a new mattress.
 

Well, I haven't been coming here and reading obsessively, so I guess the mattress situation can't be too bad now.... (Instead, I'm in the midst of a badly needed organizing/decluttering spree.)

It's not great, actually, but even if I wake up a little sore, it doesn't last all day and I haven't been feeling crippled by the mattress, so that's an improvement. Also helps that I finally went to see my LMT, who does trigger point therapy, and got some serious knots loosened up (ow).

I've been migrating toward the middle of the mattress lately, instead of sticking to my side, so maybe that'll help break it in more evenly. I might still wind up taking out those button tufts at some point, but I'm holding off on that. I should wait until after the 100-day period for comfort exchanges is up, although I have no idea what I'd exchange this thing for. It is not a bad mattress for the money.

Before I bought this mattress, I bought the 2" 22 ILD topper from the Arizona Premium Mattress Co. My initial plan there was to try that out, and do some zoning under it, to get a better sense of whether an all-latex mattress would work for me. I wasn't going to buy an innerspring mattress until after doing that experiment -- but then I woke up feeling crippled too many days in a row (after I'd ordered the topper but before it arrived, which took a while), so I went ahead and gambled on the Simmons, which I knew would take 2-3 weeks to arrive.  Basically, the pain I was in tossed my plan out the window -- and I figured that since the Simmons would be quite firm, I'd still need the 22 ILD topper.

Gotta say, that 22 ILD topper from Arizona Premium is really nice. I had doubts and almost canceled the order, so I called the company, spoke with a guy there named Greg, and was reassured enough to keep the order. I asked if they could find me a seamless piece; he said they'd try but couldn't guarantee it; and what arrived was indeed a seamless flawless full 2 inches of 22 ILD natural latex. It is soft but has way more substance than the 14 ILD stuff -- in fact, Greg at Arizona said they don't sell anything softer than 19 ILD because the softer stuff has no substance. 

So anyway, that's on top of my Simmons right now, along with my 1" of zoned latex (14 / 32 / 14 ILD). And my yoga mat is still under the hip area. I think I need to move that up an inch, so it's directly under the 2" topper, but we'll see if the shoulder area of the mattress breaks in more.

I'm thinking that my collection of medium and medium-firm latex might make a good futon couch or part of a decent guest bed at some point, so I'll hang on to that for a while. 

I gave the 2" 14 ILD topper to my mom to try out, but she didn't like it, so it's coming back here. Might have to try to sell that. (I keep thinking that it could be cut up to make a wonderful bunch of kitty beds or small-doggie beds. But then someone would have to sew covers for them... and that someone ain't gonna be me.)

Did that answer your question? (I see that you have a recent thread here; I'll take a look now.)

I just stripped the bed to change the sheets, so while I was at it, I took off the toppers and the wool mattress pad so I could check the mattress. It is indeed breaking in rather nicely (and visibly), especially in the shoulder area -- in fact, it's broken in enough that now I need to either sleep on the other side of the bed for a while or just rotate the mattress so the whole thing gets broken in more evenly and I don't roll in toward the middle of it. (I'll probably switch sides for a bit, and then rotate the thing.)

I think my use of the yoga mat over the hip area is helping that part of the mattress to *not* sink in too much, but we'll see....

Pretty sure that this mattress will be OK for a bit (and that I'll take off some of those tufting buttons eventually), but... again... we'll see. It's heavier and more unwieldy to handle than my old mattress, but I don't care about that, as long it lets me sleep decently and doesn't make my back hurt.

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Edited the next morning to add:
There's nothing like sleeping on the un-broken-in side of the bed to make one realize just how much the slept-on side has broken in. Looks like I'm going to have crunched shoulders again for a little while.... but at least now I know this side *will* break in, and then my shoulders & upper back will be happier again.