Memory Foam Mattress or a Topper - (merged threads)

FROSTYFRECKLE

Hi,

Hubby and I initially bought memory foam topper - utter luxury. We then invested in a full mattress - absolute heaven. I would suggest buying the topper first - memory foam can get too warm. If you find it too warm you have not spent too much. Also have seen the memory foam toppers and mattresses on the shopping channels on Freeview. Can't remember which channel, I would say the channel with the cheesey presenters but they all have cheesey presenters:D

moonrakerz

I noticed an a TV advert for these mattresses it says they were developed for NASA - why ?
In space you are weightless, so a wooden plank would be as comfortable as a mattress. Or perhaps they just had a sideline in developing things for their own use using the NASA budget !

Tim_Deegan

moonrakerz wrote: »

I noticed an a TV advert for these mattresses it says they were developed for NASA - why ?
In space you are weightless, so a wooden plank would be as comfortable as a mattress. Or perhaps they just had a sideline in developing things for their own use using the NASA budget !

Memory foam was developed by NASA for the astronauts seats. They used memory foam because it moulds to the contours of your body and spreads the weight out, and therefore helping to lessen injurys caused by the massive G-forces.

viddy

moonrakerz wrote: »

I noticed an a TV advert for these mattresses it says they were developed for NASA - why ?
In space you are weightless, so a wooden plank would be as comfortable as a mattress. Or perhaps they just had a sideline in developing things for their own use using the NASA budget !

True ur weightless when ur in space, but u weigh a ton when during launch when ur going against gravity.

Tim_Deegan

imnoexpert wrote: »

I spent a number of years recently as a bed sales manager and have a little advice based on customer feedback

generally the support you get from a memory foam bed is unparalled with any bed other than a water bed, some of the beds however more so the older ones or cheaper ones do not breath very well and trap body heat, all of them do make you warmer as it is your body heat that warms the foam and sculpts it to your body shape.

If you have one it is generally cooler if you have a pocket sprung mattress with the memory foam incorporated on the top as the pocket springs act like bellows as you move and circulate the air.

however be warned that although the foam mattress is the ideal sleeping surface for many people with disabilities or movement problems etc they can be difficult to get out of in the morning because the foam gives and moulds under pressure meaning that it often does not give enough resistance to enable you to push down and get yourself out of bed therfore making it difficult for the very people it could benefit most.

Never be conned into using a memory foam topper on an old mattress that is past it's best as the topper will mould to the shape of the mattress and therefore not give you very good support

Some very good advice, and quite a lot of it worded better than me. However I just need to add something about what you said about difficulty getting in and out of bed:

What can cause most problems in this area is when the memory foam is too deep, especially if this is combined with the density being too high. There is a well known memory foam mattress company begining with T who use 3" of memory foam (which is really too deep), combined with memory foam which has a very high density. The problem with this is that the foam has a very slow recovery rate making it very difficult to change position because you can't get out of the mould. As long as the density isn't too high this shouldn't be a problem, and it should be possible (depending on dissability) to roll to the edge of the bed.

As far as pushing down on the mattress in order to sit up, I can only see this being a problem with very deep memory foam. I have actually just experimented with this on my bed, and can't really see that my mattress would cause any more problems than any other type of mattress, but then mine is pocket sprung/memory foam and is medium to firm.