Thursday, February 14, 2013

#335 The Princess and the Pea



The Princess and the Pea is a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale about a young woman who sleeps on 20 mattresses and 20 feather beds, yet feels a pea that is placed underneath them all. Her physical sensitivity is an indication of her royal identity, which the prince, who is looking for a real princess to marry, is quite happy about.

Tuesday night I purchased a new mattress. I am currently sleeping on a Stearns & Foster innerspring mattress, which is nice enough, but after six years it is sagging (that actually happened after a year) and is causing me some discomfort. I wake up several times during the night to turn over and in the morning have a sore back and sore hips (yes, I know I’m in my 40s, but that shouldn’t happen). I am tired of the pea! I can only rotate the Stearns & Foster mattress, which seems kind of silly since I take up the entire length of the mattress and my butt hits it in the same place no matter which way I lay on it.

My mattress before that was from Holder, a local manufacturer. I liked this one because I could flip and rotate it, thus helping a bit with the sag. I was also able to get extra length (84” long vs. the standard 80”). I sleep on my side, but it was nice to be able to stretch out to my full length and not have my feet hang off the end of the bed.

So after seven years on the Holder mattress and six years on the Stearns & Foster, I am giving up on innersprings and going for memory foam.

My brother and sister-in-law bought a ComforPedic mattress about three years ago. Paul researches everything very well and I like to copy him, so I looked primarily at that brand and after a couple visits to the Ashley Furniture store in Castleton, I bit the bullet and bought one. It should arrive in mid March. I cannot wait!

Debbie, the salesperson at Ashley, was very helpful and mentioned that very thin women have a harder time finding a comfortable mattress. She recommended that I look for a plush mattress instead of a firm one. I have a history of minor back pain and always associated a firm mattress with more support. Debbie has worked in the mattress industry for over 18 years and I have not, so I took her advice and went with the plush mattress. It has the same support as the firm mattress but has more layers of cushiony foam to ease my bones.

A mattress is a very personal purchase, and an expensive one, so you need to do your homework before purchasing. I agreed with the information Paul found on the ComforPedic brand, but in the end I chose the type of bed that was best for my body type.

Hopefully the pea will be gone. Now if I could only find my prince charming.

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