If you have a matress "topper", how do you deal with sheets?

I think they're a big pain in the ass. They call mattresses like that "pillow top" mattresses in Canada, and as far as i can see, all mattresses come with them, i guess unless you stipulated a mattress without them. I guess bed linen here is made with them in mind. The edges are basted, so they're not as thick at the edges as they are in the middle. The problem i have with them is that they slide toward one side of the bed or the other, so when i change the sheets, i turn the mattress end for end and side to side, so the pillow top can slide back the other way.

Our mattress doesn't have an attached one. This topper is a separate thing all together.

We bought a new bed about a year ago and it's one that is supposed to be "loosely sheeted" to get the maximum comfort out of it (it's supposed to spread a bit as it gets broken in). Even expensive sheets fit it fairly tight so I can't just put the topper on top of the mattress and expect the bed to sleep right.

Then Mr. B messed up his joints and the bed feels too firm.

So I'd like to do the topper but it's about 2" thick and I know I can't get the sheets to fit.

OK, the "pillow top" isn't attached either, it has elastic straps at the corners--it is removable. As i say, i don't know if fitted sheets here are sewn to account for that or not.

Oh I get it! I thought you were talking about those pillow top mattress' that had the "pillow" sewn on.

Yeah, that sliding around thing would maybe drive me nuts.

Is the one you have heavy?

The one I'm looking at is pretty heavy. It doesn't have elastics though.

Yeah, relatively heavy. I'm not intimately familiar with Canajun mattresses, so i don't know if the pillow top is commonly sewn on or not. I guess it's relatively heavy, i've not attempted to measure the thickness. If it has no elastics, is the fitted sheet supposed to hold it in place?

Do you know what a feather tick is? Having you thought about finding one of those? When i was a child, my grandmother kept the down when plucking chickens, ducks and geese, and then bought ticking to make feather ticks.



This is what her feather ticks looked like--the striped material is called ticking. They were about as wide as a "Hollywood" bed, so that would roughly have been half as wide as a queen size. We slept on those on the floor of the cabin we had in the woods, under our sleeping bags. I recall they were very comfortable, even though we slept on a hard wood floor.

There used to be a store here that sold down mattress'. I loved the one I had. Mr. B didn't love it so much though -- "too poofy".

This is the topper I'm looking at: http://www.healthyback.com/products/Healthyback/Healthy-back-bliss-pure-latex-mattress-topper-2/816?gdftrk=gdfV22827_a_7c631_a_7c4399_a_7c816.

It's made by the same company that made our bed -- and we all really like this bed. Especially the dog who is sleeping on it right this very minute.

Which brings up another point. It would be much cheaper to replace the topper as needed than to replace the mattress....

Well, dogs are natural born sybarites--the dog's opinion rules. Our dogs sometimes let me have as much as a quarter of the mattress.

Yeah, that thing is thick as hell. What we have is probably not that thick, and the upper an lower covers are basted together at the edges.

We upgraded to a memory foam mattress last year, and I can't believe the difference.

They ship it direct to your door, rolled up in a tight cylinder, and you have to let it expand for a day or so.

I think you can get memory foam mattress toppers, too, of varying depths.

I checked out memory foam toppers while I was there today. (I drove that poor salesman crazy dragging his displays all over the store.)

This one was a lot more comfortable but I like the price of the memory foam one a lot better.

I've heard memory foam "sleeps hot" and read a lot of reviews that say the same thing. That's one of the reasons we went with the bed we bought.

Have you found that to be true?

No, but we have the full mattress, not just a topper.

If you jusst bought a bed, you probably don't want to spring for another one, but I really like latex foam ones (not the polyurethane cheapo foam). The latex lasts much longer and is much more dense, but also more squashy than the comparatively inflexible poly. It doesn't get lumps like innerspring ones, which I've never understood--who wants to sleep on a spring, even a padded one? Unfortunately latex is also quite a bit more expensive. I got one at a pretty radical clearance sale decades ago--mislabeled as full size, folded and tied up. We got it home and undid the cord, and it took up almost the whole living room--turned out to be a king size. Bur very comfortable, and requiring all new sheets. Latex doesn't sleep hot. It's getting a bit long in the tooth, so to speak, so I got some of those waffle-ish memory foam toppers --the ones that have the little hills and valleys all over them, nominally 1 1/2", but the hills squish down, and you can lay others of the same on top the other way, so the hills sort of interlock with the valleys on the other one crosswise on it. That doesn't sound like it makes sense, but it does. Put the mattress pad on top of that, and the sheets (deep pocket king size) on top of the whole schmeer and it worked. And did make the old mattress more comfortable. Maybe the mattress pad makes a difference, but it's not hot either--I'd heard the same thing. You might try getting one of the hill-and-valley ones--I've seen twin size ones on sale for $10-15 (more if not on sale). Put it on his side of the bed, and see if it makes a difference. If yes, get a couple more. If not, just leave that one there for whatever relief it might bring.

That's what we got -- a latex bed make by a company called Pure Latex Bliss. We LOVE it.

The newer foam mattresses are laminates of multiple kinds of foam.

Not all of them.

The real ones are pricy but worth it.

aaaah, boomer, good choice. sweet dreams.

I agree. They're great. And supposedly they last forever (ours came with a 20 year warantee).

Except they do take a while to "relax" and that leads to the whole sheeting issue and that's kind of pain.

Mr. B has been trying to get more exercise (turning 50, ya'know) and so he's been a bit achy and wishing the bed was softer. I'm trying to find a way to make it softer. But the whole "how to put a sheet on it without messing up the comfort of the bed because it's so fat now" thing has me flummoxed.

I can't bring it in and work with it because that would spoil the surprise.

THis store has fitted sheets with up to 25" pockets.
http://www.cozytownlinens.com/300tc-cotton-bottom-fitted-sheet-p-197.html
Here too http://www.linensbargains.com/deeppocket.html

or do it yourself
http://craftingagreenworld.com/2010/07/25/turn-a-flat-sheet-into-a-fitted-sheet-in-ten-minutes-flat/

Thanks!

I just bought new sheets yesterday. I was putting them on the bed when the mattress topper idea hit me. Grrrrrr.