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Hi Inov,

If it can be any comfort, I've been having a very similar saga. I too have a Katherine soft, which I've been sleeping on for the past four months. I am 5'3, 120 lbs, and I think it is just too much bed! I tried the Katherine medium for over a year and it was too firm, causing aching shoulders so bad I couldn't sleep much past 4 am because of discomfort.. A variety of topper or pillows couldn't fix the problem. I switched to the Katherine soft and though I can now sleep through the night, I still have super tight shoulders that I have to spend all day stretching.

I just spent a week at a hotel sleeping on a super cheap-looking, 6", spring coil sofa-bed mattress. It is the kind that is super bouncy and squeaks like crazy when you move and you can feel the coils. I thought I'd be miserable the whole week. Instead the very next day I woke up utterly relieved from the shoulder tightness and felt 10 years younger! I noticed my hips sunk better on this tiny mattress, taking the pressure off my shoulders when side-sleeping. I also noticed the springs firmly pushed back on my bones. It's this elusive sinking and yet solid pushback combo I'm desperate for.

I wonder if the 3" of a comfort layer on the Katherine is just too much for petite people? Or could it be that the Katherine's powerstack foundation is too stiff and doesn't let petite hip's sink enough when we barely reach it through the thick comfort layer? Either way I don't see how to make the mattress work.

I feel like most mattresses options are geared for large men. I'd like to find a simple spring mattress with just a 1.5" latex comfort layer, 19 ild or less, but haven't seen one. I'd love to hear if you have a breakthrough!

Hi Maybe54,

Thanks for your sharing your experiences and input. Unfortunately, there really is no one style that fits specific sized people, such as those who are petite, due to the individual preferences, levels of fitness, flexibility, body shapes and pre-existing health conditions, just to name a few things.

I feel like most mattresses options are geared for large men. I'd like to find a simple spring mattress with just a 1.5" latex comfort layer, 19 ild or less, but haven't seen one. I'd love to hear if you have a breakthrough!

Major mattress brands tend to be geared more toward “averages”, as are many of the “simplified choice” mattresses, trying to hit more of the middle of the bell curve of comfort. But when you mentioned the 1.5” on top of a spring unit, I remembered Luma Sleep off of the top of my head the lumasleep.com ~ Base Luma Mattress . You may wish to look into that.

Phoenix

Hi Maybe54,

I so appreciate you taking the time to share with me your experience with the Katherine soft mattress! I'm sorry to hear of your difficulty finding a comfortable mattress and appreciate your empathy and helpfulness. It really is comforting.

I'm curious if Quality Sleep Shop exchanged your mattress without much difficulty. I'm so afraid of being stuck with this mattress! I thought I'd give it two weeks to "get used to it" before I called them back. I think I'm just finding the latex very uncomfortable - the resilience, perhaps, as Phoenex put it. Tim thought that I needed the extra cushioning as I was still having some side hip and thigh pain with the 3" combination of the Emily bed and topper. But the pushback from the sinking on this bed is so strong it hurts. I can't seem to find a pillow that makes this bed work for me either.

You make a good point mentioning the "posturized" coils which are tighter through the center third to support that part of your body - Phoenix mentioned that too. Maybe it's too much for us petite people.

I've never had problems sleeping on hotel beds either! The main drawback for me is the motion transfer from my husband moving around a lot. So . . .I will be giving Tim a call this week and hope I can exchange this for a model that will be more comfortable. I'll certainly let you know!! Thanks, again!

Just a few more thoughts...

I think I got my latex mattress choice SO wrong for so long by being thrown off by the terms "medium" and "soft." When I visit mainstream mattress stores, my experience is soft is VERY soft. I'm thinking of the polyfoam pillowtops that are nice at first but wear down and have led me to wanting something more medium and durable.

When I decided to experiment with latex, a material new to me, I ended up WAY overshooting by trying beds that were described as "medium" with top layers that were between 28-32 ild. I liked how firm they felt (I still do, despite by body screaming otherwise in the morning), plus I thought I could fix my side with a topper while my husband, who is 5'9, 160 lbs, would be just fine. I never figured out why all the toppers of various heights and densities couldn't work--pressure points were fixed but then my spine ached. My theory is that when your petite, 3" is already quite far away from the base layer, and adding an extra inch or two just adds new problems.

What was humbling to learn when I finally switched to the Katherine soft, and I should have known better, is just because a bed is called soft, it can still be SUPER firm if you are low weight. Again, when I lie down I like the quiet, solid, firmness of this bed, but the fact is my body is so stiff in the morning. 24 Ild of talalay latex (or dunlop which I too have a suspicion is in my Katherine). is still WAY WAY too firm. I'm STILL NOT in the ball park. Interestingly, the Natural Escape has a top layer of dunlop with an 18-22 ILD. Its product description makes clear it is medium firm, and so I steered away from it, but it must be similar to the "soft," or what it know listed as the "plush," Katherine (24 ILD talalay). Silly me for letting the product description make me hope it would be be soft for me and allow the right sinkage. Now I'm adamant about first paying attention to the actual ILD.

I think petite people--say 130 lbs or less starting at 5'0--interested in experimenting with latex should start with top layers that are in the 13 to 19 ILD range, preferably 13 and preferably talalay which seems to have more give than dunlop for lighter bodes. I think the thickness of that layer and the firmness of what's underneath would all have to be tweaked, but something in that range is at least a good starting point for the right sinkage, and would help avoid all the time and expense of trying things WAY out in left field. Soft latex is such a different animal compared to soft polyfoam or soft cotton or wool batting for petite people. (I think hotel beds do not hurt us because they have all that fluffy polyfoam in the pillowtops--as petites it's no problem to deal with that. Latex is exotic for us, I swear! Even the utterly thin and flimsy innerspring of my most recent hotel stay was fine and welcome my by body compared to my super high quality latex hybrid/so-wrong-for-me bed ).

Another reason I think petites new to latex get it quite wrong is that ILDs of 13 to 19 in the comfort layer don't seem that common. When I ran across them in my search for a latex bed, those low ILDs seemed extreme.

I would ask Tim if he has mattresses with latex top layers that are between 13 and 19 ild and if there are floor models to try out. When I read their mattress specs, it seems that very low ILDs are not available, just taller and taller toppers.

I too get seriously stressed out by having to return things--it's such a headache and takes so much time and energy for everybody. I think I used up all my good graces by returning my medium ONE YEAR later. Tim was EXTREMELY kind to put in a soft layer after all that time, but when I received it and called him distraught knowing it was still much too firm, he was clear I would have to bring in the mattress myself--even though I said I didn't mind how much it would cost--if I wanted a customized layer of 19 ILD or less. My husband and I can barely rotate the thing, let alone get it into a rental truck and drive the 50 miles.

For now I'm sleeping on our guest bed--a Brooklyn Bedding 3" inch blended talalay latex topper (19 ild) on top of a super stiff Tuft and Needle bed from 2013. This feels fine. Just looking for something less cut-and-paste.

Meanwhile, I wold love to hear what you end up with!

Hi Maybe54,

Thank you for taking the time to relate your experiences with the different comforts of different materials.

You bring up an excellent point that there are no "standard" definitions or consensus of opinions for firmness ratings (even within people of the same mass/BMI) and different manufacturers (and foam companies) can rate their mattresses very differently than others so a mattress that one manufacturer rates as being a specific firmness could be rated very differently by another manufacturer.

Different people can also have very different perceptions of firmness and softness compared to others as well and a mattress that feels firm for one person can feel like "medium" for someone else or even "soft" for someone else (or vice versa) depending on their body type, sleeping style, physiology, their frame of reference based on what they are used to, and their individual sensitivity and perceptions.

There are also different types of firmness and softness that different people may be sensitive to that can affect how they "rate" a mattress as well (see post #15 here ) so different people can also have very different opinions on how two mattresses compare in terms of firmness and some people may rate one mattress as being firmer than another and someone else may rate them the other way around. And as you stated, a polyfoam piece rated as “medium” can feel quite different from a latex piece rated as “medium”. And Dunlop latex will tend to feel “firmer” than Talalay latex of the same ILD.

This is all relative and very subjective and is as much an art as a science, and in the end the only reliable way to know whether a mattress will be "firm enough" or "soft enough" for you will be based on your own careful testing or your own personal experience. Thank you for sharing yours!

Phoenix

Hi Maybe54 and Phoenix,

Here's a little update that I thought you might be interested in: I received an email from Quality Sleep Shop asking me to post feedback on the Katherine mattress on their new site. I hate leaving negative reviews so I emailed them back regarding the suitability of this mattress for petite people, the latex "pushback" against my torso, etc. Tim called to tell me that they are making some new "prototypes" this week with a different, softer spring system. This may be helpful for you as well. I tend to think that it's more the Dunlop latex than the springs that's the culprit in my case but worth a try.

Hi lnov,

Thank you for the update. I have been aware of some of the changes at QSS. I'll be interested in any of your comments/feedback should you visit there again.

Phoenix

Update - Went back to QSS yesterday to try new prototype beds - actually there was just one. I thought it was going to be a "new" Katherine similar to the one Maybe54 and I had selected only softer but it was their new "Katherine Gel" which we were considering anyway. The old Katherine Gel, revisited, was firm.

This one uses a lighter-weight coil system base with 1" of 14 ILD Dunlop latex and 1" of 4 lb. memory foam and then wool over it. First impression was that there is only a couple inches of comfort layers here. It was comfortable but "sinking" and after lying there awhile, still was feeling the push against my torso. With our current Katherine mattress you feel the softness and then it stops when you hit the bottom of it. With this new Katherine Gel model, you don't hit that bottom.

When going back and forth in the showroom comparing this prototype Katherine Gel to our current Katherine mattress there was no comparison regarding the luxurious feel of our Katherine quilted top to the flat foam of the prototype. I queried Tim about the possibility of a "Katherine-style quilted top" over this prototype and he thought that would defeat the purpose of sinking into the mattress and make it feel harder - but it sounded good to me.

The lighter-weight coil system seems to be a good idea for us lighter-weight people but we weren't really impressed with this new model overall. Maybe with some added inches of comfort layers or a quilted top. I just doesn't seem very substantial. As an aside, bought some new wool-filled pillows while we were there - husband love his, mine - because it wasn't high and hurting my neck (I love a "low" pillow), didn't take the pressure off my body enough, I guess, and made our mattress much more uncomfortable. Back to the drawing board. Never thought that finding a mattress would be this much of an ordeal. I so appreciate your "listening" and any input, Phoenix.

Hi lnov,

Thanks for your update. I’m glad you were able to try out one of the new prototypes, but I’m sorry it wasn’t for you.

It seems from your descriptions that a less robust support system agrees with your particular needs. I don’t know what options you still have with QSS, but your thought of having more substantial comfort layers combined with their newer spring unit would be an interesting combination for you. They have to design their mattresses to apply to a larger set of people, so your needs may not be something that they think would be viable or appropriate for their main lineup, but I don’t know if there are options for what they could create for you.

Phoenix

This may not help but my husband and I after researching here went to Quality Sleep Shop and purchased right before Christmas the Emily pillow top which is now the plush. I could not sleep on it as it hurt my sides. My husband loved it. In fact I thought they delivered the wrong bed.

We called the owner who told us he would exchange it but it would soften in several weeks and feel like the display. I could not sleep on it so I purchased a 1 inch talalay topper from foamorder.com? It was okay but I took the topper off after 6 weeks and now love the bed. I found Quality to be totally honest and had such a wonderful
experience with Quality Sleep Shop.
The bed now feels like the one in the store, but it did take a while. The topper was never as comfortable as it is now without it as it got hot and the stitching in the wool and bamboo cover on the mattress really adds comfort. The owner for a small price offered us this cover as we wanted a more natural cover.

I can't believe how the bed was literally too painful for me to sleep on and now I love it.

I appreciated the owners honesty and assistance afterward.