Sleeping by the numbers

After sleeping for close to 30 years (Yes! 30 solid years!!) in a mushy water bed, and loving it most of the time, we have switched. It's not because I didn't like it any more. I still kind of miss it most nights. It's just that I enjoy sleeping with my spouse and HE couldn't tolerate the water bed any longer and was being driving out to the couch almost nightly when he could no longer stand the pain the water bed inflicted on his back or hips or shoulders.

Normal bed mattresses, even nice soft pillow-tops, gave me sore hips. We have a couple of kids who have purchased Sleep Number beds recently and like them, so Mike went shopping. Remember, I'm the one who does not like to shop. I looked at them online. I laid on Gail's bed and she adjusted it for me so I could see what it was like.

And that's what it has been--an adjustment. Mike chose a much fancier version than the basic model. But when he went to their store one time when he was out of town and looked it up, he really felt most comfortable on that one. He really fell sound asleep on the show room floor model (of course, he WAS a little sleep-deprived at the time!). So that's what we got. He did go along with my plan to keep our present bed frame. We kept the king size waterbed frame and headboard (which are shelves and such) so we didn't gain any space in our crowded little bedroom. But, we also didn't have to buy a frame, end tables, etc. to hold the new bed and all our stuff. I was kind of looking forward to having "under-bed" storage with a new bed, but decided that I'd rather just keep our bigger sized bed. We feel too squished and crowded in a queen to do that every night. Are we spoiled or what?! Maybe we are really just a whole lot fatter than we think we are! Yikes.

So, I'm still adjusting. I went through my pulled back muscle, and it was really nice to adjust the softness/hardness of the mattress as my back healed. I do NOT like how hot the bed feels, however. For some reason, the water bed just didn't seem to retain body heat in one spot. And with me and my warm/hot flashes. . .well, it's kind of toasty. There's more foam under me than I'm used to. Our water bed didn't have a foam mattress pad under us.

One of the things that the mattress we bought came with ("for FREE!!" Yeah, right.) was a king-size down-alternative comforter with a duvet cover. It is so nice. It's really great quality. But it's so hot. We just cannot tolerate it. We even opened our bedroom window one mild night. I'm wondering if it will be more usable in the winter, but our house is a fairly constant temperature. I just don't know what to do with it. It's white. And huge. It's classified as "light" weight, so I can only imagine how heavy and hot the "heavy" style one would be, had we selected that model! We'd sprain our arm trying to lift the covers to get out of bed in the morning! ha.