Just leaving this here in case it saves someone else a little suffering: it was life changing to start sleeping with a pillow between my knees. I used to wake up with debilitating lower back pain every morning, which I worked through with stretching and yoga and such but then I saw a commercial for one of those bowtie shaped foam pillows that go between your knees and figured "what the heck" and ordered one. It was weird at first but seemed to help a bit, then one night I came home late, tired, and couldn't find the thing so just jammed a regular pillow between my knees--the following morning was the first time I woke up without back pain in years. It's definitely hard on the pillows so now when I buy a new pillow for my head I demote the old one to knee service.
If anyone else is as baffled as I was by why you would put a pillow between your knees: the idea is apparently to improve your alignment if you happen to sleep on your side.
(I do sleep on my side, but this idea has never occurred to me, and I tend to picture other people lying tidily on their backs - so I was picturing someone sleeping on their back with a pillow placed in an unaccountable position.)
I have done this my entire life. I think. When I met my partner, she found it strange and hilarious. Now, she is the one who always need a knee-pillow.
Can you share any details about that "regular pillow?" Ideally an online link that will ship internationally, but failing that: Materials, thickness, density, really anything that might be relevant would be helpful.
Nothing magical, it's just the same as I was already buying for my head: a mid-range (~$50USD), standard-size, down pillow. I mostly buy them from Bed, Bath & Beyond but the nearby store closed I've used a variety of brands from other department stores over the years.
I had it all figured out. Dark room. Just the right temperature. Big enough bed. The perfect mattress. Cool, high tech, fabrics. Nice and thin pillow.
Then along came The Kids. Two of them. They have, of course, beds of their own, night lights, all that stuff. But they are now the ones enjoying my wonder of a bedroom. And me, I'm sleeping on the couch.
Some nights, one of The Kids, seems to feel even the couch is to comfy for me. One of them comes wandering over to the couch to sleep next to me, often ending up pushing me out altogether. Those nights I end up sleeping, all curled up, in their small Ikea Växa-beds.
But, I'm not morose. Im just tired.
Good luck with your sleep palace, pal, I sincerely wish you get to enjoy yours.
I started sleeping on the floor about six months ago. Carpet, thin duvet folded beneath me. I’ve looked at a dedicated shikibuton-type-setup, but the paradox of choice has stricken pretty hard.
It wasn’t from any sort of plan or goal, I just started doing so after some time spent crashing on my living room floor watching movies with my roommate.
I like that I get up quicker in the morning. And it’s been a more dedicated sleeping setup than a bed has ever been. Surprisingly, I’ve found that almost every time I’ve slept on a normal mattress (few different ones) since, I’ve had some back or neck pain the next day.
When our first kid fell out of our continental bed and smashed his mouth all bloody. We started sleeping on the floor. That was 4 years ago, and we have moved twice since. we are still sleeping on the floor.
We wan't to get bed, but a very low one. Mattress on the floor is nice, but it's actually good have have some kind of airflow below the mattress, I guess for ventilation.
My back feels so much better when sleeping on the floor than it does on even the firmest of mattresses, and most mattresses are way, way too soft for me.
IKEA frame, IKEA Matrand mattress (around $250 for a 200cm^2 size), IKEA pillows. The whole setup is like $500 and perfectly fine for us.
I dont really get the obsession in the US with those >$1000 mattresses. I think the whole thing is artificially inflated via marketing, where I live people dont make a big thing about matresses and and fine :)
I have the sense that for people increasingly unable to afford a house or an automobile, an expensive mattress is being presented as the next-more-affordable luxury.
To me, an old R&D principle applies: If you are going to spend so much on a piece of custom hardware that you will be afraid to admit it was a mistake or lacked essential features, better to experiment a little with something simpler first.
After buying and returning multiple beds in the last year, I learned a few things:
- Bed reviews are either very anecdotal or company sponsored.
- Do not buy a bed without testing it. Bring a pillow and spend at least 15 minutes relaxing on each candidate.
- If you can afford it, avoid “beds in a box”. They retain serious heat, provide little support for any sleeping position, and are not easy to return. Casper beds specifically caused me and my spouse a month of back pain.
- Test the softest version of the bed before making a decision, even if you prefer firm beds. There is a often a significant positive difference between “medium” and “extra plush”.
- Beware “free” add-ons. Mattress stores use them to hedge against returns and refunds by applying the value of the items to the mattress. This means if you return the mattress, you won’t get the full refund back.
- Shop at local mattress outlets, if possible. I was able to save $1,200 on the same exact model quoted (also at discount) at the major mattress chain with no haggling.
I make all of my sleeping purchases based on sleeplikethedead's ratings. Great source for "Unbiased and Accurate Mattress Research" [0]. I have so far not been disappointed.
* Duvet in a washable cover, a size larger than the bed.
* No blankets.
There's nothing to come untucked or get tangled in, and making the bed takes 3 seconds. It's ruined me for other beds though, getting wound up in all the layers and loosing blankets.
Queen-size bed with memory foam. Bed frame from Ikea.
3 blankets: one soft fleece blanket, one comforter, and one 25lb weighted blanket to keep me from kicking in my sleep. The weighted blanket has been the biggest QoS improvement for me personally.
2 comfy pillows, double-stacked.
Honorable Mentions:
My heat-pad I throw into the microwave that comes out smelling nice is fun to throw into the mix when it gets cold at night.
My super long phone-charging cable for when I want to flip sides and not worry about charge.
Pillows. I'm most opinionated about pillows, I have been my entire life. If I had to save a single thing from my bed setup, from a fire, it would be my pillow -- https://hullopillow.com
It's very cool. I hate pillows that make or keep my head warm. The buckwheat hulls are very sparse, not at all insulative, so they don't keep my head warm.
The pillow is infinitely-malleable, so it's very easy to reach a comfortable position. I'm tall with broad shoulders, so sleeping on my side is hard. Most pillows are too thin. The buckwheat pillow is easy to pile up under my head when I lie on my side.
4x ¾" plywood sheets screwed together on 12x sturdy 10" legs + 50x 1x1" 8' sticks on top for ventilation => 8x8' bed + 5" custom 95D memory foam mattress + 10lbs buckwheat "main" pillow + memory foam "between the knees" pillow. Absolute darkness with 3M blackout film on the windows. I've always struggled to find a big enough bed so I can "starfish" in the middle. Building a custom one helped!
I am thinking of getting a hospital-type bed with support for head elevation. GERD is getting the better of me these days and 2 pillows to prop me up is not doing it.
You could always put a few books under the feet at the head of the bed. Or even some sort of spacers to raise up the head of the box spring from the frame.
Do you have any recommendations for where to buy or brand? My biggest fear with these is that the build quality can be all over the place and the last thing I want is to burn down the place!
I second totalZero. LOVED mine in the winter when I used to live up in the North East... nothing more comfy than to slip into a nice warm bed on a cold winter night (well, when I was single anyways lol). I've had a few different models from SunBeam, all with a timer built in to pre-heat and turn off. I found the build quality to be good, never had any issues.
Before I moved in with my girlfriend, I was sleeping on a twin mattress on the floor! (With a small rug underneath it). So I suppose anything would have been a step up.
I also got a duvet from them so that the duvet cover would match the size of the duvet.
Also, they'll customize the sheets to your mattress if you send them measurements. I haven't found any other way to get a tight-fitting sheet, as it seems that king mattresses and sheets have a wide range of sizes, and the last thing you want is to splurge on amazing sheets that give you a bad night's sleep cause they don't fit properly.
I don't make my bed. I just have a pile of king size blankets on my queen size bed (about 3 of them, depending on the season). I crumple them to lean against sometimes, and spread them out at night. They're pretty much square so I don't care about their orientation.
I have a Linen blanket, it feels a bit like a potatoe sack (it gets softer over time), but it has a decent weight (more than a sheet) and feels cooler than my other blankets. The hype around them isn't made up, when I first received it I was surprised that it felt physically cool to an extent I had never experienced with other blankets. Linen is made of flax seed. It was more expensive than regular blankets, about $100.
Cal King bed, because of my height. Just a foam bed in a box on Amazon. My mattresses start getting depressions in them after a year or two anyways, so I try not to spend a fortune.
As for the frame, I like minimal. Just a steel platform that I can slide things under.
I have this problem too. I’m 2m tall and 118kg. I destroy most sitting or sleeping things eventually. It’s surprisingly reasonable to get custom made mattresses in the uk. Current one is 2.10m long. Perfect
LOL, about identical stats and understand completely. My furniture is all either wood, metal, or super cheap. No sense in dropping 2k on a fancy couch I'll just destroy in 6 months, I figure. Do you guys have size Cal king in the UK? Luckily they aren't too hard to get here in the US, though finding nice bed sheets can be an adventure.
Purple mattress, sheets, and pillow. Still get excited about it even though I bought it a few years ago. Can’t recommend enough. Got the base model not the fancy one. Housed in an old IKEA bedframe.
Nest bedding pillows (shredded memory foam). (Best) It is also specifically made for side and back sleepers like myself. (is cut out a bit in the middle)
Sheets vary (we have multiples). But usually what the wirecutter recommends.
Duvet from Costco - I think. Cover is from IKEA and is like $20 or so.
I also use a cotton blanket for myself but not everyone likes those. My partner loves duvets.
It works really well. We’ve never experienced a single bed that is better than ours.
Adding my own question, great topic, have any of you hackers figured out a great bed cooling system to buy or build? It seems like there are a lot of options, but not reviewed particularly well.
Bedjet probably the best example but there seem to be a lot of them. Basically anything that can move some heat away from me while going to sleep, but still being able to enjoy the weight of a sheet or light blanket would be really nice.
Dude this is not a computer or electronics gear. There’s no “upgrade to” - the best thing to do is go to stores and try stuff to see what works for you. Because someone’s “upgrade” might be totally wrong for you. As an example, the memory foam pillows that everybody recommends don’t work for me, I had to test until I found one that worked and is harder/firmer than the usual recommendations.
I sleep in a tent in the backyard all summer. The cooler temperatures mean I can use heavy blankets, which I find comforting, and the light makes it easy to get up early in the mornings. It's just a Walmart-style tent with a twin mattress inside, the fly usually stays off unless it's rainy, with a sheet, two blankets, and a sleeping bag unzipped on the top. Very comfortable.
I've slept on couches for most of the past fifteen years. Usually with just an army surplus wool blanket. It's a little weird, but it's what I'm most comfortable with; I get wicked cramps and back spasms trying to sleep on high-quality mattresses, it's just awful and doesn't work for me.
Firm-ish Zinus mattress on Zinus metal foundation, best my back has felt in years after trying many super soft memory foam mattresses like Tuft & Needle and standard innerspring mattresses.
For anyone with back pain I would suggest trying firmer over softer and training yourself to be a back sleeper if you’re not already
Great topic! I've tried so many things and have had a hard time finding something that works for me - specifically for my neck. I guess it's good to add contextual info - what your situation is and WHY this works for you so that people with similar issues might be able to find a good lead.
I have a Baavet woollen duvet (https://www.baavet.co.uk/), and I love it. It’s made not far from me, and regulates heat really well. Less of a fan of the pillows but can’t recommend the duvet enough.
I got a new bed in a box from Helix. Honestly, quite surprised and happy with the purchase. Also got a lower bedframe with it. The other important thing is a sleep mask to cover eyes if you are sensitive to light coming through the windows and like to sleep in late.
I have placed 15kg worth of dumbbell weight plates under each bed post in hope this might reduce meditation of sound vibrations due to neighbors walking and running and doing whatever else to cause them. It works a bit but not as much as I'd like.
We've been trialing the Purple, I love it but my S/O hates it ("it doesn't help if I go to be sore"). They have a 100 day guarantee, as most of the modern mattress manufacturers do, so there no harm in trialing.
Casper bed, Casper pillow, cotton sheets. Watching the mattress inflate was extremely satisfying. I think it's pretty comfy. I live in a tiny loft so moving a conventional mattress into it would be very difficult.
Best bed I've slept in was also the least expensive: a simple 10" foam pad cut to king-size bed dimensions. I put it on the floor and fitted it with king-size bedsheets. Most any pillow works for me.
One fairly cheap bedroom addition I can't recommend enough is blackout curtains. Took me 25 years to discover that they're a thing, and the improvement in quality of sleep has been immense for me.
Personally I prefer to allow the sun to wake me (and I don’t nap).
With the curtains I have an extreme tendency to oversleep or wake unnaturally from something like an alarm in the middle of rem sleep and be all groggy. Prior to getting them I would just wake naturally between 7-7:30 in the summer and 6-6:30 in winter.
Sometimes I sleep on my couch in the office so that I can wake naturally that way.
I think my bed is old enough to drink. Might be even old enough to rent a car. My pillow is also very flat, which may be because I wake up every morning to having squeezed it into a ball during the night.
Just a basic Casper mattress from Costco on a queen Ikea frame and it gets the job done pretty well. I have cats that shed a lot of claw up sheets so I tend to just not spend much on them.
I have many problems with my postures thoughout the whole day (bad habits and WFH), but I exercise semi-regularly.
I do stretching, running, or swimming- one or multiple of these all year.
I guess that is what saves me from back pains and other trouble despite bad postures.
Even when I didn't exercise (before age 14), I did not have any back pains despite sleeping on a very hard mattress.
Talk to your doctor and/or do a little exercise regularly. That should help. Don't start exercising with existing back pain without consulting an expert, though.
