the princess and the pea

$10861 actually. This is the story of how I ended up spending the price of a low-end used car on a mattress.

My husband likes hard mattresses, and I like soft. When we got married, we used his bottom-of-the-range Custom Comfort Mattress, which was so hard that his parents, when visiting, would prefer to sleep on the floor. When I was pregnant, I had to sleep on a camping mat on top of the mattress just to not wake up with aches and pains.

When we decided to upgrade from a queen to a California king, this began our saga of finding a mattress that might suit us both. I seized the chance to recommend purchasing the default mattress that came with the bed. It was pricey, but I thought that there might not be another opportunity to capitalize on an impulse buy that was closer to my preference. This ended up being a foam mattress that was adequate but not ideal for me; however, it was terrible for my husband. I had a great second pregnancy (no camping mattress required), but my husband was increasingly uncomfortable with pains in his neck.

Midway through my pregnancy with baby number three, my husband finally reached his breaking point. We decided to go with a split mattress solution. We research things like Sleep Number mattresses or other such mattresses. They all were in the $2,000 to $5,000 range. Having already sunk thousands of dollars into a failed experiment, I wanted something a little bit more guaranteed to have something that would work for both of us. Custom Comfort appealed because of their guarantee that they would rebuild the mattress if it was not to one’s liking. It also appealed to me that my husband had previously liked one of their mattresses and that they were made locally with great materials. I also like the promise of lasting a lifetime and the prospect of not going back to the drawing board again with a mattress.

So I went into the store to pick out a mattress (they have a nearby Pasadena showroom, also a great selling point) and lay on a bunch; however, they recommended that I wait until I was postpartum to select a mattress, as my needs might change.

I went back to report a delay to my husband’s dismay. I gave birth in December and went in basically, the next week to pick out a mattress. I lay on every mattress in the store, and it was quite overwhelming to decide what to pick. I felt a lot of pressure because my husband had been uncomfortable for so long. For my husband, it was easy. Essentially the hardest setting.

Finally, I settled in on one and we went to the checkout without looking at the price. Most of the mattresses on browsing had seemed to be in the $3,000 to $5,000 range, which was steeper than what we had paid previously: approximately double. Still, it seemed a bargain compared to reinvesting significant money in yet another attempt at a mattress to satisfy us both every few years.

When I saw the final price was double even the high end of that range, I just sighed. At that point, a week postpartum and deep in decision fatigue, I just pulled the trigger. Luckily, I have a high-limit credit card. I was able to pay it off that month and rack up a lot of points , though I continued to wince at the price.

A few weeks later, it arrived:

Giving the Guarantee a Run for Its Money

It proved great that they had such a guarantee. It was clear to me fairly quickly that my side of the bed was not as comfortable as I had hoped. To make things worse, I tended to sleep better in hotels while traveling. I really wanted to give it a good try, so I slept on it for a solid three months. But in the end, it just wasn’t working. So about four months later, they came to do the swap.

Having spent so much on a mattress, I really felt entitled to get things perfect, although I felt a little guilty when a large truck blocked the road to do a swap of the mattress. When I called in, they recommended refurbishing the topper, a 2-3 in piece on top of the mattress, first to see if that might do the trick. I wasn’t convinced, because the mattress was so off from what I felt in the showroom, but I thought I’d give it a shot.

This was still much too hard for me, but again I wanted to give it a solid go, so I slept on it for another five months before I made the phone call again. I was convinced I needed the whole mattress refurbished, but after much back and forth they convinced me to try to refurbish the topper. I agreed with the acknowledgement that if it didn’t work this time, we would go for the whole mattress. So almost a year later, they came and swapped a temporary mattress topper while they did the refurbishment again. At this point, I was really feeling ridiculous. Then when the top part came, it was clear that this one was extra awful. They had put foam in to make it even softer, but it was giving me extreme night sweats.

I called right away, and we agreed to refurbish the whole mattress. However, I did agree to give this one a bit more of a try, as well as it being a bit booked out until they could do the service. So in February, just over a year after my original purchase, they did the final swap out, this time rebuilding the entire mattress. Ironically, the way in which they rebuilt it was one of their following the patterns of one of their cheaper models. I think if I hadn’t spent this much on the mattress, despite the guarantee, I might not have had the confidence to try to get it exactly right.

And when they delivered it, it was. I slept fantastic throughout my fourth pregnancy. And even when I’m traveling in a hotel, I look forward to getting back to my bed. My watch sleep numbers went up, and I’m routinely well rested. And I’m confident I won’t buy another mattress. Hopefully ever.

My Review – would I do it again?

Overall, I’d do it again. One thing to keep in mind with these guarantees is just how awkward it can be to request, potentially multiple times, a giant truck come to your house and swap out a piece of mattress on what is essentially bad vibes. There’s no objective function that drives you to the perfect mattress which as a scientist disturbs me: you can’t sleep on the mattresses in the showroom in your natural environment, each mattress is slightly different (the custom in the comfort), and the signal you have is a simple thumbs up, thumbs down at a low resolution and a long time lag. I wasn’t confident that we were going in the right direction as I tried to work with Custom Comfort to find something which really worked for me.

Another thing to keep in mind is that Custom Comfort has the practice of selling toppers separate from the mattress itself, which are much easier to swap out and refurbish. They are incentivized to convince patrons to try these first, which can produce extreme delays if the problem is the mattress itself. The skeptic in me thinks it’s a bit of a scam in that many consumers may be content with simply swapping out the simple topper, even if that doesn’t meet their needs, and Custom Comfort gets credit for “fulfilling the guarantee.” To get the full refurbish, I really had to advocate for myself. But all that said, I do now have the perfect mattress and my husband is sleeping great too.

As busy parents of four with demanding professional jobs, we have the privilege of being able to afford something like this. It was certainly stretching our budget when I panicked and said yes to the original price tag. But it was ultimately worth the price to be comfortable sleeping, guaranteed.

How to do it better

I have a referral code if you’d like one. In hindsight, I’d recommend spending extra time in the showroom and definitely checking the price tag before you check out (all their mattresses are pricey, but there are more affordable ones than the one I bought in a panic). Finally, I’d strongly recommend if you have an issue and you’re confident the issue is not the topper, following your intuition right away and ensuring the root cause is addressed. By not doing this, I lost about a year of good sleep and I don’t think Custom Comfort and my incentives were exactly aligned here. Sharing this information is the primary reason I wrote this blog. I don’t want to knock them, I am a happy customer in the end, and I’m happy to drive business to them, but I don’t want someone else having a year of back and forth as I did. Happy sleeping!