CHRISTINE: It’s not the bed that I remember as a child, like a trampoline where you’re just like, whoa.
CAIRA: Yeah.
ROSIE: Oh, my gosh. I never thought about that. You used to get height.
CHRISTINE: I’ve seen my kids try to jump on my bed and they are not getting any height. No, it’s really pretty dismal.
ROSIE: Not impressive.
CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.
CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell.
ROSIE: I’m Rosie Guerin and you’re listening to The Wirecutter Show .
CHRISTINE: This episode is called Love Your Mattress.
CHRISTINE: Rosie, you may not be aware of this, but…
ROSIE: Why wouldn’t I be aware of this? I know exactly what you’re going to say.
CHRISTINE: All right, so you’re aware of that. Next week is Presidents’ Day.
ROSIE: Obviously.
CHRISTINE: It’s next Monday.
ROSIE: I’ve been counting down for months.
CHRISTINE: Yes, which celebrates our past presidents’ birthdays, but it also happens to coincide with Wirecutter’s annual Sleep Week where we cover things you sleep on, but just also how to get better sleep, which I think we can all agree is a very, very important thing. But it also happens to be a time of year that a lot of bedding companies have sales and deals. If you are thinking about upgrading something on your bed, it is a good time to kind of be looking out for things you might want and if you want to get a good deal.
ROSIE: The twins are doing a unit on hibernation at school right now. So I think this is the time of year where we’re hunkered down. We’re in our beds. It’s cold. We’re not yet thinking about spring.
CHRISTINE: Do you like your bed? Do you feel like you’re comfortable sleeping?
ROSIE: I love my bed, love my mattress sprang for something that I hoped would last, and we’ve had it several years.
CHRISTINE: Well, I thought this would be a great opportunity to talk with Caira.
ROSIE: Who?
CHRISTINE: Our co-host, Caira Blackwell.
ROSIE: Wait. Caira Blackwell?
CAIRA: Wow, she sounds amazing. Who is this person?
ROSIE: She’s absolutely brilliant. She’s incredible. She’s a mattress expert.
CAIRA: I love that we’re getting all this in writing.
ROSIE: I know. I should be careful here.
CHRISTINE: Well, Caira, you’ve been testing mattresses for a couple of years for Wirecutter, right?
CAIRA: Yeah.
CHRISTINE: So we figured this would be a good opportunity to chat with you, not only about if you’re in the market for a new mattress, we’re going to talk about that a little later in the episode, but what people can do for their mattress right now. If they don’t feel like buying a new bed, how to make your mattress more comfortable? I mean, mattresses are incredibly important…but also incredibly personal purchase! There is no best mattress for everyone.
CAIRA: Yeah. I mean…My goal is not to find the best mattress of all time. Because that just doesn’t exist, point blank. My goal is to try a bunch and to get a lot of other people with different body sizes and preferences to test them, too. And then I collect all that feedback and sort of synthesize it. So that you can find the best mattress…for you.
CHRISTINE: I mean we spend what, a third of our life in bed. So you really want to get a mattress that works for you.
ROSIE: This is really a good opportunity too to put you in the hot seat and ask you all these questions. I feel like it’s the question that most people ask you about, but how do you do it? How have you tested mattresses?
CAIRA: Yeah, I’ve been testing mattresses for about two and a half years now, and it requires a lot of spreadsheets, as I’m sure every Wirecutter tester will tell you and also, it requires a lot of logistics. There’s nothing more nightmarish than trying to get 12 queen-sized mattresses into an office. And then from there, I narrow that down and then I try to get one queen-size mattress into my apartment where I test it at home.
CHRISTINE: And not just any apartment, but a New York City apartment. So that has its own set of challenges. Are you in a walk-up?
CAIRA: Well, I used to be. I actually moved in part because of this job. I used to live on the fourth floor, no elevator, and I would be getting new mattresses every month or so, which was just, it was a bad situation.
ROSIE: So I don’t even think I know this. You will test a large number in the testing space in Long Island City, and then that’s where kind of the spreadsheeting begins.
CAIRA: Yeah. I probably will go through dozens of options through my spreadsheets, and then I’ll reach out to companies and I have a certain criteria that each mattress needs to meet before I can even start to think about bringing them into the office. So I try to narrow it down to about 12 or less, and then I will call them into the office. I set them up. We cover the mattresses so people don’t actually know what brands they are, and then I make a survey and then people will come in and test the mattresses and fill out the surveys and it’s all ranked. It’s fun. Yeah.
CAIRA: Yeah. And then when we finally get our finalists narrowed down, which is usually somewhere between two and three mattresses, I will actually have those mattresses sent to my home. When I test them at home, I sleep on them for a minimum of seven nights. And what I’m really looking for there is defects or things that you just can’t tell when you are only testing them for 10 minutes at a time like you would at a mattress store. So for example, I tested a really cheap mattress that cost about $200 at the time. It’s a bed in a box, and I had it sent to my apartment. I dragged it up four flights of stairs, and then I opened it up and the mattress did not inflate all the way. It was awful. So basically, the mattress was like arched in the middle upwards and I had to sleep on that for seven days straight, which is terrible, but it’s good testing notes because then I know what’s the process for getting a defective mattress and how easy is it to return it, get your money back. So all of that is valuable.
ROSIE: How many mattresses have you tested at this point?
CAIRA: Well, I’ve lost count, but it has to be nearly a hundred at this point.
ROSIE: What’s the wildest, weirdest testing story you have?
CAIRA: I haven’t actually owned my own mattress the entire time I’ve been testing at Wirecutter.
ROSIE: That’s what…Wait.
CHRISTINE: It’s just like a rotation of mattresses that’s coming through your apartment?
CAIRA: It’s just a constant…Yeah, I don’t own my own mattress. So I’m currently testing a mattress. I’ve been testing it for six months, and this is the longest I’ve had the same mattress since I started writing for sleep on Wirecutter.
CHRISTINE: Okay, but you got to back up a minute.
ROSIE: Before we feel too bad for you, tell us about the mattress you’re testing right now.
CAIRA: Well, yeah, so I think right now the wildest thing I’ve ever tested for Wirecutter is this current mattress and it costs about $75,000 – for everything, the mattress, topper, boxspring and the headboard.
CHRISTINE: Oh, my gosh. Wait, what’s the brand? It’s the Hästens?
CAIRA: It’s a Hästens mattress.
CHRISTINE: Hästens is how you say it. Hästens.
CAIRA: So a Hästens mattress, the star ingredient is horse hair, but the entire mattress is made of natural materials. So it’s got cotton, it’s got flax, it’s got wool, but the horse hair is the star of the show. It’s all handmade.
ROSIE: I’m currently Googling what can I buy for $70,000? A car.
CHRISTINE: It’s definitely a down payment on a house in certain parts of the country.
CAIRA: It is.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. But this is kind of like the bed of celebrities, right?
CAIRA: Martha Stewart loves her Hästens mattress.
CHRISTINE: Yes, yes.
CAIRA: Drake famously also has it. It’s an investment for sure. But they do claim that the mattress is supposed to last you an entire life and even more.
CHRISTINE: Is it worth $70,000? Do you feel like…What do you say?
ROSIE: $75,000.
CHRISTINE: $75,000.
CAIRA: Get it right, Christine.
ROSIE: That extra five will put you over the edge.
CAIRA: This is that area that I don’t feel like I have the authority to tell you if it’s worth it. What I can say is that it’s the best mattress I’ve ever slept on. But I am by no means telling you to go out and spend a year’s salary and some change on a mattress! I mean if you have the money go for it, I mean…
CHRSTINE: Yeah we’re not gonna hold you back. And I mean, at Wirecutter, we do this sometimes, right? We test very high end items and the very low end items just to kind of have a comparison point when we’re testing other stuff. And like 95% of the time we’re gonna recommend something n the middle. Very rarely are we gonna recommend something so high end. But it’s really helpful for our journalism to be able have those reference points. It gives us a chance to…say, the try a 75,000 dollar mattress. We do it for the journalism.
CAIRA: It’s for science.
ROSIE: I think the biggest takeaway is that I have to keep playing with Scratchers. I really want a $75,000 mattress.
CAIRA: Yeah. If you have 70K to burn, go ahead. Do it. I don’t think you’ll regret that decision.
CHRISTINE: Okay. Well, thankfully, the overall takeaway of this episode is not that you need to go out and spend $75,000 on a mattress. Just stepping back a minute. A bad mattress or an uncomfortable bed can really screw up your sleep. You can just wake up not feeling great. It’s a fundamentally kind of part of sleep hygiene.
ROSIE: It’s important. We spend a ton of our lives sleeping.
CAIRA: Yeah. A third.
CHRISTINE: Let’s dig into this a little bit. After the break, we’re going to talk about how to make a bed more comfortable that you already have. So listeners who are not wanting to buy a new mattress, we’ve got lots of tips for you. And then we’re going to talk a little bit about your real insider tips at this point about how to shop for a mattress.
CAIRA: Love it.
CHRISTINE: All right.
CHRISTINE: Welcome back. Today, it’s Caira Blackwell, our co-host extraordinaire, but also one of Wirecutter’s resident mattress testers and experts around sleep. Caira, we’re going to put you in the hot seat today, and we are talking all about how to get a better night’s sleep on your bed.
ROSIE: And if for whatever reason you can’t, how to buy a new one.
CHRISTINE: Okay. So Caira, I personally have a huge amount of trouble with sleep. I wake up all the time.
CAIRA: Really?
CHRISTINE: I’m a light sleeper. I am getting older, so that means many, many things change. And I have one glass of wine. I can’t get any sleep. My kids wake me up like 13 times a night. I want to know, Caira, for someone who’s maybe not getting optimal sleep right now, how can you kind of parse out whether your mattress is actually the problem?
CAIRA: Totally. I think the biggest signs would be if you’re waking up and your back is sore or your joints are achy or you’re waking up in the middle of the night a bunch of times, and it’s not because your kids are coming to get you, it’s just you’re waking up in a hot sweat, for example. That could be the mattress and not just you.
CHRISTINE: Okay.
ROSIE: If you’re waking up achy or sore though, Caira, does that always mean it’s time to throw out your mattress? Because I have had some soreness specifically in my shoulders, my kind of C-spine area, so I’m wondering if it could be my mattress.
CAIRA: Yeah, not always. It’s not always your mattress. And I know that you’re a stomach sleeper, so you’re being achy on your neck doesn’t really surprise me. But that could also tell me that it might just be your pillow, which is the first thing you probably should look at is your pillows.
CHRISTINE: Why is that?
CAIRA: Because a pillow can really make or break your mattress experience. If you’re not being propped up in the right areas, depending on how you sleep, it could cause things like achy joints, a sore neck, a sore shoulder, sore hips.
CHRISTINE: All right, so that’s super helpful. If you are having trouble on your mattress, you might want to just go out and get a different set of pillows, which is a much lower cost than buying a mattress. So much cheaper.
ROSIE: Lower barrier to entry. We also have guides on Wirecutter about pillows, and I think we’ll probably do a pillow episode at some point on the show, but for now, we’re going to focus on whether or not the mattress is the issue.
CHRISTINE: Right. So Caira, how do you know if you can salvage your mattress? If you’re feeling uncomfortable and you’ve ruled out the pillow situation, how do you know if you can bring the mattress back to a place that you would feel comfortable on it?
CAIRA: If you feel like your mattress is too firm, like you’re waking up and maybe your shoulders or your hips are really achy, that might just mean that your mattress isn’t plush enough to let those heavier parts of your body really sink in and let your spine be aligned. So for that, I would just get a topper. There are all different kinds too. You can get a memory foam, down, down alternative or latex, and this really will depend on how you like to sleep and what your preference is for the feel. But any of these could make your mattress cushier.
ROSIE: Can you just run through quickly what you might expect each of these types of toppers to feel like?
CAIRA: Yeah, totally. So memory foam kind of sucks you in. If you’ve ever sat on a Tempur-Pedic mattress, that is a classic memory foam feel. And then down is it’s lighter, it’s fluffier. If you’ve ever had a down comforter or even down pillows, you kind of know what that feels like. It’s fluffy and it’s airy, but it’s definitely not as supportive. And then down alternative feels pretty much exactly like down. It just doesn’t have natural materials in it. And then latex is another foam alternative. It feels like memory foam, but it doesn’t necessarily suck you in. It’s more bouncier and it’s lighter and also kind of airier.
CHRISTINE: Okay, great. What about if a mattress is too soft?
CAIRA: Yeah, that one’s harder. It’s really hard to go from soft to firm. So in that case, you probably just need to get a new mattress.
CHRISTINE: Okay. All right. What about dents or indents? Because that sometimes happens in mattresses.
CAIRA: Yeah, that one is another unfixable issue. If it gets to that point, you can’t really. Like you can’t unfold the paper or whatever. I don’t know what they’re saying, but you just can’t undo it so you’re also going to have to get a new mattress. But if you order from some places, check the warranty first before you go out and buy a new one because some mattress companies do cover that.
ROSIE: So in general though, how long should your mattress last? Because when I knew we were going to do this episode, I was thinking about when I got my mattress. I don’t think there’s any issue. Still feels very solid and intact, but I was thinking about how long I’ve had it. It’s been a while.
CAIRA: I would say it depends on what kind of mattress you’re getting. Roughly, I would expect most mattresses to last between seven and 10 years though.
CHRISTINE: I used to edit mattress coverage a while ago, and I remember having conversations with people at that time where a lot of these sort of newer mattress companies haven’t even been around for 10 years. So it’s a little hard to say with some of these mattresses. We don’t actually have evidence of how long they last, but 10 years is probably a pretty safe bet.
CAIRA: Especially if you’re getting something like foam. I know many mattress companies who specialize in foam mattresses are so new and there’s so much competition, but all foam is pretty much made the same at this point and it has a long record of being very durable.
ROSIE: So when it kind of runs its course, what is going to happen? Is the foam itself going to degrade or will it have indented to a point that is not recoverable?
CAIRA: Yeah, you’ll definitely feel it. It’ll start sloping and your body will start leaving an imprint in the mattress. For example, if you have a mattress that comes with a pillowtop, like my favorite the Stearns & Foster, you’ll want to be extra vigilant because those tend to sag faster than a classic memory foam.
CHRISTINE: A pillowtop is like a super plush top, right?
CAIRA: Yeah, a pillowtop has that billowy “pillow” look to it that makes it so soft and cushy. So the mattresses are built great, but if you’re not rotating it the way they’re supposed to be or sleeping on it evenly, then it will start forming depressions earlier.
CHRISTINE: A hack that a physical therapist once told me about that issue with the top getting soft is that she tends to buy firmer mattresses and just buys toppers every few years. So that is also a strategy if you’re really trying to buy a bed that you can use for years and years and years, but it does require a little bit of more mental effort to find a topper you like.
CAIRA: Yeah, that’s true.
CHRISTINE: So Caira, even if you’ve had a mattress for a long time, let’s say it’s over 10 years, I’ve heard of people having a mattress for 20 or 25 years, if you’re still sleeping comfortably on that mattress, you can just keep it, right? There’s not a reason you should be getting a new mattress.
CAIRA: Totally. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
ROSIE: So sleep hygiene 101 when it comes to mattresses, if you’re waking up achy, you’re waking up sore, you’re waking up with pain, could be your mattress, could also be your pillow. If you’re finding your mattress is too hard, consider a mattress topper. If it’s too soft, it’s harder to problem solve. In that case, you might want to explore getting a new mattress, and that’s what we’re going to talk about more after the break.
CHRISTINE: That’s right. We’re also going to talk about what you kind of need to spend to get a decent mattress, and we’re going to walk through the different types because there’s a lot of different options out there. We’ll be right back.
CHRISTINE: Welcome back. Caira, this is my favorite part of this episode because we get to get real nerdy and Wirecutter-y in this part. We’re going to really dig into the details of how to actually shop for a mattress, what people should pay attention to, what they can kind of ignore and what you have to spend to get something good.
ROSIE: This is a big purchase.
CHRISTINE: Yeah.
ROSIE: Mattresses are expensive. Even inexpensive mattresses are expensive.
CHRISTINE: And they’re also big. They’re big pieces in your home.
ROSIE: Absolutely. I was recently helping my parents move and they had to buy new beds and it seemed like there were some really expensive options, but also some “cheap” ones on Amazon. What, Caira, do you actually have to spend to get a good durable mattress that’ll last, I don’t know, say a decade?
CAIRA: I would say just generally, if you are willing to spend around $1,500 for a mattress, you’re going to find something you’ll like.
CHRISTINE: For a queen size?
CAIRA: For a queen size. And I always test queens because that’s what most people in the country buy.
CHRISTINE: So if you buy something, we have a guide on the site for mattresses that are about $500 or less for a queen. What’s the sort of value difference between the $500 mattress and the $1,500 mattress?
CAIRA: I told my partner to get one of our cheap mattress picks. It’s the Zinus Cooling Swirl. It costs 350 at the time, and he’s had it for nearly four years, and I think it’s just as good as the day that he got it. So I think that those mattresses are fine, they’re durable and they can be really comfortable, but the cheap mattresses just tend to have a little less nuance. They’re not balanced. Sometimes they have a few more cons than pros, but I still think it’s a great purchase if that’s what you can afford.
ROSIE: So a cheaper mattress might not have all the bells and whistles, but it’ll do what you need it to do.
CAIRA: Yeah, it’s like a good tuna melt. You love a good tuna melt and they don’t cost that much, but at the end of the day, it’s not going to be like, I don’t know, an amazing Italian sub with a million ingredients on it and 10 different sauces.
ROSIE: And balanced properly.
CHRISTINE: That’s right.
ROSIE: So we’re timing this episode obviously around Presidents’ Day week. There are a lot of sales on things like mattresses. Should you ever pay full price for a mattress?
CAIRA: You should never pay full price for anything.
CHRISTINE: That’s the answer that I wanted from Caira.
ROSIE: Whoa.
CAIRA: Always haggle, always get a deal. But I would say definitely, definitely definitely shop around during Presidents’ Day weekend because you will be getting good deals.
CHRISTINE: There are other times of year when sales happen though, right?
CAIRA: Yeah. Memorial Day is a good one and Black Friday now is great for mattresses, especially if you’re going the online route.
CHRISTINE: Okay, Caira. So I want to talk next about where people should think about shopping for a mattress. Right now, there are so many choices. There’s been this proliferation over the last 10 to 15 years of direct to consumer brands, and these are kind of the brands you see advertised on Instagram or you get little flyers in the mail. And I think one of the most popular for a while was Casper, but now there’s a ton more. So you can buy a bed in a box. Basically, they ship it to your home and you unpack it and then you can of course go the old school route and go to something like a mattress firm and try stuff out in person. After testing so many mattresses, what do you think are the pros and cons of each of those approaches?
CAIRA: I would say the pros of going in store is that you can actually touch and lay down and feel the mattress, which is huge. I still think even if you want to buy online, you should go into a mattress store and try to find the model that you’re interested in and try it out. Because no matter how many videos you watch or how many descriptions you read, it’s really not going to tell you if you’re going to like the mattress. But the con of that is that you actually have to take the time to go do that, and you have to endure the awkward salespeople who stand over you and try to push you to buy something immediately.
ROSIE: “Hey, is anybody helping you?”
CAIRA: Right.
CHRISTINE: Can you haggle inside of a in-store place?
CAIRA: Yes, you can always haggle.
CHRISTINE: Okay, I cannot haggle shockingly.
ROSIE: One can. Maybe you can.
CAIRA: Always, always haggle. Play them against each other. They’re always in competition. Somebody is trying to get you to buy that mattress so you can use that to your advantage. For the pros of direct-to-consumer, it’s great because it’s easy and they always have really good return policies or free trial periods. But the con is that again, you just can’t tell what you’re actually buying until you get it. And then if you don’t like it, it ends up in a landfill somewhere because you’re returning the mattress and they’re not going to sell it to somebody else.
CHRISTINE: So is that the dirty secret of this sort of mattress industry where you can return for a hundred days or whatever, but that’s what happens to those mattresses at the end of the day?
CAIRA: Honestly, even if you go in-store, they’ll give you a basic return policy and a warranty. Most mattresses I’ve seen these days have a 120-night sleep trial, which means if you don’t like it after 120 nights, you can still send it back if you went and bought it from the store. And they will usually give you at least a ten-year warranty. And this is both for direct-to-consumer and in-store shopping. You can send it back and they’ll just throw it away and you buy a new one and it’s terrible for the environment.
ROSIE: If you do go into a store, what are you looking for? Because I usually throw myself back onto the mattress and wait for something magical to happen, but I don’t actually know what I’m supposed to feel.
CAIRA: Yeah, no, you’re not going to levitate as soon as you find the mattress that you like, unfortunately.
ROSIE: I’m just like…Yeah.
CAIRA: No, it’s a very boring process, but I would just recommend that people don’t just…We call them a butt-sit test when we’re doing in-office testing where people just kind of sit on the edge and bounce around and then they get up and walk to the next one. Please lay down on the mattress the way that you would lay down on it if you’re trying to sleep at home, even if it’s a little uncomfortable, because you’ve got a salesman breathing down your neck. That’s the only way that you’re going to tell how your body sits on the mattress.
CHRISTINE: So what about other things that you do when you’re testing that you recommend people do when they are trying out a mattress?
CAIRA: I always look at the motion isolation, which is when you’re sharing a bed with a partner and they get up and you can feel it on your side, it jolts you around. So I will usually have somebody else sit on the bed or get up off and on the bed while I’m on it to test that. I also test the edge support, which is when you sit on the edge of the mattress. But this is really just to tell if you’re sitting on the edge of the bed to put on your socks, or if your partner is pushing you to the edge of the bed in the middle of the night, you’re not going to fall off the bed.
CHRISTINE: Right. Like a bad edge support, you’ll slide right off.
CAIRA: You’ll slide right off and you can tell. I lay down on my back, on my stomach and on both of my sides. And for me, I’m trying to tell if my spine feels aligned in my side sleeping position because that’s the position that I sleep in. And that just means that you feel like your body is straight instead of if a mattress is too firm for me, my hip feels like it’s up in the air and my shoulders feel like they’re pressed up against the mattress. Or if it’s too soft, then I feel like my lower body is just sinking too deep and I’m slanted.
CHRISTINE: Right. Right.
ROSIE: How long do I have to lie there?
CAIRA: I usually take at least 10 minutes on a mattress.
CHRISTINE: So that can be a pretty long process.
CAIRA: When we have 12 mattresses in the office, sometimes it can take people up to two hours to test, and I’ve had one person who actually fell asleep on one, which is so cute.
CHRISTINE: That’s just napping on the job.
CAIRA: That was his favorite.
ROSIE: So now I know the price point I’m looking for, I’ve decided how I want to buy my mattress in-store or online. Now I want to know how am I meant to decide what type of mattress is going to be right for me. This is the part that is overwhelming.
CAIRA: Yeah. I’m genuinely still kind of surprised sometimes in my two and a half years of doing this, just how people aren’t really sure how they sleep. So what I always tell people is to assess yourself first.
ROSIE: You’ve been bugging me to assess my sleep since the day I met you.
CAIRA: Forever. This means you need to know how you sleep. Are you a side sleeper, back sleeper, stomach sleeper, or a mix of any or all of those? And then you need to look at how much you weigh, how tall you are and how your weight sits on your body. So for example, most of my weight is in my shoulders and my hips. So those are the heaviest points that are going to be kind of dragging into the mattress. So I’m really looking for a mattress that supports the heaviest parts of my body.
CHRISTINE: Knowing your sleep position, understanding your weight, your height, all of these things, how does that help you get to deciding what type of mattress to get?
CAIRA: Well, again, you have to go into a store and you have to try all the different types. But for example, when I go into a store and I’m on a memory foam mattress, which is really sinky, it really pulls you in. I know that I don’t actually need that much support from a memory foam mattress because I don’t want to sink in too deeply. And I know that I don’t really like the feel of memory foam to begin with. So if I lay on a mattress, a memory foam mattress, and I feel like I’m getting sucked in and I can’t move, it’s really hard to shift positions or I feel like my hips are too high up or too low, then I know that that’s not the mattress for me.
CHRISTINE: Is the firmness level of a mattress correlated to all of these factors, like the position you sleep in and your weight and all of that? For instance, I’m a stomach sleeper, so there’s not a lot of pokey bony parts poking into the mattress. Is a firmer mattress better for somebody who’s a stomach sleeper? Is there some easy cheat sheet?
CAIRA: Yeah, that’s a great question. I would say generally there is. So if you’re a stomach sleeper, you do want a firmer mattress because your whole body is kind of pressing up against the mattress except for your shoulders and your face. So you really want a mattress that will support the lower half of your body so you don’t feel like you’re arching your back when you sleep every night. For side sleepers, you want a softer mattress for the reasons that I already listed. You do have those pokey bony parts sticking into the mattress, so you want to make sure that they’re properly cushioned. And then for back sleepers, you guys are the best. You’re really easy and you can pretty much sleep on any mattress that you like because you’re flat.
ROSIE: Let’s talk about the different types then. You’ve mentioned memory foam. Talk about that.
CAIRA: Memory foam is polyurethane foam, and this is the same material again that they use in car seats, airplane seats and some pillows. The entire mattress will only be made of foam. There will be nothing else. And they really feel like a slow, sinky feeling. I kind of feel like I’m laying on quicksand when I lay in one.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, they’re not my favorite.
CAIRA: Yeah. But they really cradle and conform to your body, which people really like.
CHRISTINE: Yeah, I think some people like that you’re being hugged by your mattress and you’re not going to move that much. Right?
CAIRA: Yeah.
CHRISTINE: That’s kind of a big plus of them.
CAIRA: Huge plus, It’s a very distinct feeling and people really like it. And some mattresses that we recommend that are all foam are the Saatva Loom & Leaf, the Leesa Original and the Novaform ComfortGrande from Costco is also great.
ROSIE: So those might be for back sleepers.
CAIRA: Totally.
ROSIE: Maybe side sleepers as well.
CAIRA: I actually think that it’s more for stomach sleepers than side sleepers.
ROSIE: Interesting. Okay.
CAIRA: Yeah, because it’s pretty firm, so you’re going to feel supported and held up very well on a memory foam mattress.
ROSIE: So talk about hybrid then.
CAIRA: So a hybrid has a mix of foam and springs, those coily bits that make the mattress bouncier. And the hybrid is kind of just the best of both worlds. So maybe you don’t want to feel like you’re sinking all the way into the mattress, and maybe you want it to be a little bit easier to shift positions in the middle of the night, like if you sleep on your stomach and your side. Hybrids are also good because they are the happy medium for people who might be sharing a mattress with somebody and you might be on opposite ends of what you like in a mattress, and this will be a good compromise. They tend to cost a little bit more than an all foam mattress because the springs cost more to construct.
CHRISTINE: And so these mattresses are kind of like a Frankenstein. It’s like the old school innersprings on the bottom, and then the layer of foam on the top. Right?
CAIRA: Yeah.
CHRISTINE: You’re getting a little bit of bounce, but also a little bit of that foamy sink.
CAIRA: Yeah. A little bit of that contouring.
CHRISTINE: Right.
CAIRA: Some of the brands that we recommend are the Leesa Sapira Hybrid and the WinkBed, which I think you have. Right?
CHRISTINE: I do. I have that mattress. I like it. I need a topper, honestly. But I do like the mattress. I think it just needs to be a little softer for me.
ROSIE: Talk about innerspring a little bit. I think of those as old school.
CAIRA: Totally. Innerspring honestly is a dying breed. Most mattresses that I’ve recommended or even tested are not really classic innersprings. People think of innersprings as their grandma’s mattress that was still flippable.
CHRISTINE: Right.
CAIRA: It’s definitely not that. But I would say what qualifies an innerspring is a bed that really focuses on the spring system, not the foam, but they will still have foam on them. So for example, the Stearns & Foster is the mattress that I have loved over the years. Every time I’m in between testing, I will have the Stearns & Foster sent to my house so I can sleep on it.
CHRISTINE: And these innerspring mattresses, are they bouncier than a hybrid mattress?
CAIRA: They can be. Honestly, sometimes a hybrid and an innerspring is just really interchangeable. I think the WinkBed, the one that you’re sleeping on, they call it an innerspring.
CHRISTINE: Right.
CAIRA: So it can be bouncier. Sometimes they can mute the bounciness with more foam, but really, it is going to be springier than your all foam mattress.
CHRISTINE: And I’ll say, I don’t feel like it’s super springy. It’s not the bed that I remember as a child, like a trampoline where you’re just like, whoa. It’s pretty…
CAIRA: Yeah.
ROSIE: Oh, my gosh, I never thought about that. You used to get height.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. You used to get a lot of height. And I’ve seen my kids try to jump on my bed and they are not getting any height.
ROSIE: Not impressive.
CHRISTINE: No, it’s really pretty dismal.
CAIRA: Yeah, I know. Because most innersprings now have the plush top, which means that it’s still got a lot of squishy foam on the top, but it’s still got that really bouncy supportive system at the bottom.
CHRISTINE: So when you were talking about the hybrid mattress, you said that that can be a great compromise for sleep partners who have different sleep preferences, maybe they sleep in different positions.
CAIRA: Yeah.
CHRISTINE: Is that the only compromise? I guess what I’m asking is how do you advise people who really have different sleep positions in a couple to buy a mattress?
CAIRA: I’m going to sound like a broken record, but go to the mattress store together always. And you’re probably going to end up with a hybrid. I would say also, if one of you tends to run hot and the other tends to run cold, maybe do the Scandinavian sleep method, which is when you guys both have your own comforters.
CHRISTINE: Oh, yeah.
CAIRA: So you don’t have to fight over the blanket.
CHRISTINE: Right. There are some brands that do split kings, meaning that you could order a bed that has different density on each side. So one side could be softer and the other side could be harder. Have you tested any of those?
CAIRA: I haven’t because most people don’t end up getting that. They are out there. And if you’re interested and you know, look into it, but in my experience, they’re really expensive and you could totally just get two twins and put them on the same bed frame and it’s the same thing.
CHRISTINE: Or like, just put them in different rooms, which is what I sometimes would like to do.
ROSIE: All right, Caira, before we let you go and get back to your co-host duties, we want to do just a rapid fire rundown of some common questions that I and we have about mattresses.
CHRISTINE: Do you have to flip your mattress?
CAIRA: Rarely. That’s very old school. Most mattresses can’t even be flipped these days. You just have to rotate them once every six months.
CHRISTINE: And by rotate, you mean like turn the head to the foot.
CAIRA: Mm-hmm.
CHRISTINE: Okay. All right. Great. Do you really need a mattress cover or a mattress protector?
CAIRA: Yes, please. So then you don’t have to take everything off and vacuum the top and maybe spot change it.
ROSIE: Who is vacuuming a mattress?
CHRISTINE: Well, you could read our mattress cleaning guide and you could see that that is recommended.
CAIRA: It is. And if you don’t have a mattress cover, you should be doing it. What is it like, once every two months?
CHRISTINE: Yeah, it’s something ridiculous. Yeah.
CAIRA: Awful. So if you do have a mattress protector, then you don’t have to do any of that. You can just throw it in the washing machine.
CHRISTINE: A lot of times you see cooling in the marketing for mattresses. Can a mattress actually cool you off?
CAIRA: No. Never. You have to get one of those AC bed systems for that to work. But if they say that it has cooling properties, like a memory foam mattress that has copper infused in it, yeah, the copper actually is good at conducting heat away from your body, but it’s not going to make you feel cool in the mattress.
CHRISTINE: Right. And if you have an issue with heat, memory foam probably isn’t your jam anyways.
CAIRA: Totally.
ROSIE: To recap, I think it really matters to assess what kind of sleeper you are, side sleeper, stomach sleeper, back sleeper. It’s really going to help lead you down a path to find the right material, whether it’s memory foam, hybrid, innerspring that might work for you. And then the real thing that you really need to try and do begrudgingly sometimes is go to a store and sit on the mattresses, lie on them, lie like you do when you’re falling asleep, to really get a sense of whether it’s going to work for you and/or a partner.
CHRISTINE: Right. Because a little bit hard to know if you just order something and it’s delivered to your door. Although you can do that if it’s got a good warranty and a good return policy.
ROSIE: But know that if you don’t like it, it’s fine, but you are sending the return to a landfill.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. Don’t be hoodwinked into thinking that it’s going to some good use or something after that.
ROSIE: And also don’t go to waterbed.
ROSIE: All right. Christine, what are you taking away from this?
CHRISTINE: Well, I…
ROSIE: Now that Caira’s out of the room.
CHRISTINE: We can speak freely.
ROSIE: Yeah, we can finally speak freely.
CHRISTINE: I am not in the market to buy a new mattress right now, and I like my mattress, but I think it’s time for me to get a topper. That’s already something I was thinking about, so I’m going to kind of poke around and figure out what kind of topper I want to make my mattress a little softe.
ROSIE: I am taking away from this that you probably don’t need to pay full price for a mattress. If you are a person who’s in the market now or sometime soon, don’t pay full price. Shop around on Presidents’ Day. Shop around Memorial Day. Shop around Black Friday. Shop around. Haggle.
CHRISTINE: Yeah. We’re also always flagging the best sales on our deals page, too. So if you’re looking for a mattresses, toppers, pillows, bedding we’ve got a lot of stuff there right now, I think.
ROSIE: Also, assess what kind of sleeper you are. Having that knowledge, being armed with that, has actually helped me figure out a pillow that works for me and it kind of helped me figure out my mattress. Yeah, I think that’s great. And then finally, I think it’s like find, scrape together $75,000 and get a Hästens. That’s it for us this week. We are going to be back with a brand new episode next week, and Caira will be back in the hosting chair. If you want to find out more about Wirecutter’s mattress coverage, if you want to check out the products, the brands, anything we recommended today, go to nytimes.com/Wirecutter or as ever, you can find a link in the show notes. Bye, Christine.
CHRISTINE: Bye.
ROSIE: The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by me, Rosie Guerin, and produced by Abigail Keel. Engineering support from Maddy Masiello and Nick Pitman. Today’s episode was mixed by Catherine Anderson. Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Elisheba Ittoop, and Diane Wong. Wirecutter’s deputy publisher and interim general manager is Cliff Levy. Ben Frumin is Wirecutter’s editor-in-chief.
CAIRA: I’m Caira Blackwell.
CHRISTINE: I’m Christine Cyr Clisset.
ROSIE: And I’m Rosie Guerin. Thank you for listening.
