I have another tip from Pelvic Floor Therapy, for those of you who have the issue of Suddenly! Needing To Pee Really Badly! So That You Almost (or Actually) Wet Your Pants a Little Bit! (Frequently happens as you’re unlocking your own front door, or as you enter a bathroom and are struggling with the button/tie of your pants.)
It’s another of the tips I found unlikely when I heard it, and then it actually worked. At the time the pelvic floor therapist told me about it, I was not yet able to do a noticeable pelvic floor contraction (these are sometimes called Kegels, but the therapist said we are not naming any more woman things after men), but she said do one ANYWAY, and in fact do three in quick succession (they call this “flicking,” which I find icky but memorable). She said, do what you THINK or IMAGINE is a pelvic floor contraction (or Kegel), three times in a row really fast, and it can stop the urge temporarily, and ideally can stop you from peeing your pants a little. And I thought, how is this going to work, when I cannot yet do a pelvic floor contraction that I can feel? But I did three imaginary (imaginary from my point of view in terms of success, but actually trying to do them) quick Kegels, and it worked. It doesn’t work for LONG. Like, if you’re nowhere near a bathroom, you are out of luck with this maneuver. But it works for the time it takes to get from the front door to the bathroom.
Which, by the way, the SECOND level of this is to NOT hurry from the front door to the bathroom, but to instead force yourself to do something else for a few minutes, such as putting away a bag of groceries. This is when you’ve gotten good at doing the three quick flicks, so then the next step is to untrain your bladder to want to go to the bathroom the minute you walk in your door. This is when we use Gentle Reassurances, like you would for a sweet little dog who is going to get to go outside very very soon but not yet. “Yes, yes,” you say to your bladder, “I know you want to pee, and we WILL pee VERY SOON, but not QUITE YET. It is fine! We can wait! We don’t even need to go all that badly!” (This method does NOT apply when you REALLY DO need to pee. Like, you have been running errands and drinking a giant iced coffee, and you have been driving 7 miles over the limit all the way home because you honestly need to pee. It is ONLY for the kind of peeing where your bladder hears you coming home and thinks “PEE TIME RIGHT NOW!!!,” when a minute earlier you didn’t even need to.)
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A number of years ago, I consulted with you about buying a mattress in a box for a kid going to live in an unfurnished college apartment. (I don’t remember why, but we weren’t going to have space for a mattress on the way THERE, but thought we WOULD have room on the way BACK.) (Oh, I remember why: it’s because of the difference in passenger space needed. An extra kid was coming along for drop-off but wouldn’t be going along for pick-up at the end of the year.) I cannot find this post now, but it doesn’t matter, because it would have been, let’s see, when Rob was a college sophomore, and eight years is a long time for mattress developments. The mattress we bought him at the time (a Tuft & Needle), after sifting through the advice, was $350, and now that same mattress is $850, and that seems…incorrect, for a mattress that lasted three school years (Rob used it for two years, Edward for one) before collapsing internally and being thrown away. (Looking at the mattress online, I see it had a 10-year warranty, so we should have looked into that—but the collapse was discovered when Paul was picking up Edward at college, and so he pitched it into a dumpster with relief at not having to find room for it in the car. And probably there would have been some reason the warranty didn’t apply.)
I wondered if anyone has recent experience buying a mattress in a box, or knows what the word on the street is. I’m kind of inclined this time to go to a physical mattress store and buy normal mattresses not in boxes. With TWO students in college apartments this year, we’re renting a lil trailer, so we don’t really need the space the boxed mattress saved. (And that space-savings disappears anyway when you go pick the kid up again and the mattress is no longer crammed into a box.)
I don’t have mattress-in-a-box suggestions, but I have a related question about dorm mattresses. For freshman year, do most students need a foam topper, or is a quilted mattress pad enough? Do people typically use mattress encasements too?
I’ve heard some recommend a three-layer system: zippered encasement, foam pad, then quilted topper. This seems excessive (and expensive!) but what’s been your experience?
I have heard many, many people say you MUST have a mattress topper—and some say you need a VERY THICK AND EXPENSIVE ONE. So far, four out of four children have not wanted/used the mattress topper. (We have two mattress toppers sitting in their packaging, one that has been taken out and tried, one that has not, so child 5 can try it if he wants.) I’ll note that one college had specific requirements for toppers, but the requirement was something like it had to pass a certain California requirement, and every topper we looked at (two) had a little stamp indicating they passed that thing.
Colleges vary, but so far, all the college mattresses we’ve encountered have been vinyl-coated, so they’re already about as encased as they can get.
We bought a mattress in a box from Costco. It is the foam kind that you have to let out of the vacuum sealed bag and then give it time to come to regular size. I bought from Costco because they are known for their flexible return policy. This was for my son and we’ve had it about 7 years wth no complaints. I do think he’s almost ready for a new one. I have no idea what brand it is, but I’m pretty sure I bought the cheapest one they had.
I should add, my son is not a small child. He’s an off-the-growth-chart kind of kid. At 14 he is the size of a full grown adult. So the mattress has held up well. I didn’t want to give the impression that the only reason it’s help up is because a small child was using it!
We have a Novaform king from Costco. Right now it’s about 8ish years old and we are thinking of replacing it in the next year or so. But it’s held up well!
I bought my kids Dreamfoam mattresses a similar amount of time ago as you and they’ve held up fine. They haven’t increased their prices a ton since then either, which is nice. https://dreamfoambedding.com
I bought the Wayfair Sleep 10″ Medium-Firm Memory Foam Mattress, which came in a box, in summer 2019 (just looked up the email). I love it and haven’t had any problems, but they don’t seem to still be selling that specific model. I paid $180 and the closest current equivalent seems to be about $100 more. It isn’t designed to be flipped over, but I do rotate it 180 degrees once or twice a year to try to avoid uneven wear.
I also have a Wayfair mattress-in-a-box and it has held up for the past approx 4 years.
We’ve bought several mattresses in boxes lately. I’ve been very happy with the G Laxia 12in mattress from Amazon. My kids are very active sleepers, and these are withstanding the abuse. They were only about $150.
Thank you for the pelvic floor hints- I have found them quite useful the past few month. It’s weird that talking nicely to one’s bladder helps, and the walk on tiptoes hint has saved me more than once.
We bought Tuft & Needle mattresses about ten years ago and they have not collapsed. (I am not really the most discerning person, but they are close enough to good as new that I would be confused if anyone suggested it was time to replace them). I wonder if there was something defective about the one you got, or being moved around was particularly hard on it?
My main experience is that when we moved into this house (six years ago), Matt bought a cheap mattress from amazon and used it while he spent six months testing out all those “hundred night guarantees” on other boxed mattresses. He returned at least three of them before he found the one he wanted. So as someone who has used the guarantees, they do work and they are only medium annoying. We had to call a local charity (they gave us a list) and the charity sent over a guy and his wife with a truck and they stood on the mattress in my hallway and kind of rolled it back up and then took a picture of it and sent it to the mattress company and then we were refunded and Matt moved on to another mattress. And once, the company sent the exact same guy out to collect a second mattress and he either didn’t remember me or at least pretended not to remember that we had already done this exact same thing. So anyway, don’t be afraid to buy one that you aren’t sure about and then return it as long as they offer that option. It works and a local charity gets a new bed for someone. And the original cheap mattress was $150 and now sits in our playroom where children flop all over it and we use it for guests and hurricanes.
I feel old because when I went to college we just used the mattress they gave us. It sounds like many people are now buying them, encasing them, and topping them. It makes sense tho if they have an unfurnished apartment you probably have to get one. I think my parents would have took mine from my room and on breaks had me sleep in a sleeping bag and brought it back for the summer.
Well I think tempurpedic came out with a mattress in a box now? And there is Ghost and Purple.
If you go Memorial Day weekend you will get the best discount of the year (my SO sold mattresses for awhile).
The trial periods do work and lots of people return. At my SO place they didn’t donate them though. The returned ones got shipped up north to be turned into carpet fibers.
I actually came here to leave a random comment that I saw these jeans I thought you would like: https://www.coldwatercreek.com/walk-in-the-wildflowers-ankle-jeans/23957/?sku=239574414604
Oops – Labor Day, not Memorial Day (they’re both good but Memorial Day is long gone)
Now I want to make those jeans.
I have actually had a great deal of success with “mattress(es) in a box”. We have one on a guest bed that gets consistent “whoa! that is a great mattress!” responses, each of my kids has used one, I have one on my bed that I love, and we just ordered one for my son to use at his college this fall. Here are the ones we have used:
My bed (king), purchased in 2020: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076CNYL2T?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_11&th=1
This one for both kids and the guest bed: https://www.wayfair.com/bed-bath/pdp/wayfair-sleep-medium-hybrid-mattress-w003131804.html?piid=1291605434%2C1218615692&auctionId=662893a6-8c90-4e8c-b2ff-378b196314b9&adTypeId=1
Here’s the one we just purchased for use at college this fall: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DPQ7SF2L?ref_=ppx_hzsearch_conn_dt_b_fed_asin_title_3&th=1
For us, the key to mattress in a box is getting the Hybrid models, and trying to get a thicker one.
I am pretty sure I had a memory foam topper in the dorms and then had a furnished apartment with no topper.
And then I moved into an unfurnished apartment and bought a lot of the furnishings from the previous tenant, including the bed, which is something that now makes me want to go take a scalding hot shower. We tossed it when I moved out, but I also think I sublet the apartment over the summer, so another poor soul got to sleep on that mattress.
My daughter had a mattress topper from Wayfair that she loved. Then we threw it away because we were afraid it was giving her ringworm. Then we found out it was not giving her ringworm, and in fact she didn’t actually HAVE ringworm, and now I have gone far off the path of offering helpful advice and wandered into my stuff, I apologize.
My friend has a mattress from a box on her spare room bed and I love it and am buying it when mine dies, but it is not inexpensive (it’s an Endy).