Hi Maybe54,
For several months I've been trying to make the lanoodles topper work, but it has a feeling of being "too much." When I sleep on it, I miss the firmer feel of the mattress below. I also have a hard time turning around on this topper, as if I'm stuck in it. Do you think it will be worth the effort to get the topper tailored so I can open it up and remove some of the noddles?
If you either have the skill yourself to open up the cover and perhaps add a zipper so you can adjust the amount of lanoodles then I don't see any issue with the idea.
I have 5'3, 120 lbs, pear shaped
My bed is from Quality Sleep Shop and is 3" of talalay, 32 ild, on top of pocketed coils
Some of your feedback about your toppers is a little bit confusing to me ...
--a 3" talalay topper, 19 ild was way too thick, like I was sinking it helplessly, but it was supportive enough for my hips (which immediately act up on a too soft surface)
This certainly makes sense because 3" would be quite a large change if your mattress is only a "smidge" too firm.
--1" dublop topper, 20 ild was too soft, very painful for my hips, great for my shoulders
This is a little bit confusing to me because if your mattress is too firm then adding an inch wouldn't be likely to make it too soft and the pain in your hips would be more likely to come from pressure points that from a topper that was too soft. This would be firmer than the Lanoodles topper. An inch of soft latex would normally be a suitable choice for someone that needed what I call "a touch to a little bit" of additional pressure relief and I would think that a "smidge" would be somewhere in that range.
--a 1" talalay topper, 13 ild was better support for my hips and good for my shoulders, but my spine felt hopelessly compressed in the mornings and it was a relief to sleep on the plain mattress after a few months.
A topper is designed to provide some additional pressure relief not support so your comments here are somewhat confusing to me as well because again a soft topper that is only an inch thick isn't likely to make a significant difference in support/alignment unless you are exceptionally sensitive.
A topper that is only an inch thick is about as thin as you will find for a topper and thinner than that may not make enough of a difference if your mattress is too firm although it's possible that this was just too soft even though it was very thin.
Less than this and you would be looking at some type of mattress pad rather than a foam topper. You can read a little more about fiberbeds or mattress pads in
post #10 here
and in
post #2 here
.
"Support" is often misunderstood because the goal of a "supportive" mattress is to keep the spine and joints in good alignment and this requires the type of contouring support that allows some parts of the body to sink in more (softer) and some parts of the body to sink in less (firmer) and this will vary on an individual basis. There is more about primary or "deep" support and secondary or "surface" support and their relationship to firmness and pressure relief and the "roles" of different layers in a mattress in
post #2 here
and in
post #4 here
that may also be helpful in clarifying the difference between "support/alignment" and "comfort/pressure relief" and "feel" and how they interact together.
Phoenix
