New Children's Mattress

Updated on January 17, 2010
C.R. asks from Hockessin, DE
6 answers

Hi -
I am looking to buy a full mattress for my 3 year old DD. Is it best to go with firm, or medium, or plush? Should i get a box spring or is that too high? I am planning on having rails on one side. Has anyone recently purchased? Are there any deals out there?
Thanks for any advice!

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T.M.

answers from Philadelphia on

Hi C.,
We got all of our kids full size beds when they were out of the crib. We did not get them frames, but they did get box springs. We went cheap with 1-800-MATTRESS because we feel that a small child doesn't need a fancy expensive mattress. For one, they sometimes pee trough. Two, they jump on the bed which can damage the springs over time. Three, when they are older and bigger we can get a more luxurious mattress along with a bed frame that they will use for years and years to come! We did go with firm mattresses because I think its better for the spine as the kids continue to grow. Lastly, we did put rails on the sides for a year or so until they learned the boundries of the new bed!
I'm sure whatever decision you make will be just fine for your little one!

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M.G.

answers from Chicago on

We went a different route than some. My 3-year-old moved to a big boy bed from the crib, and we got an extra long twin (plus the bed). It was about a $750 mattress, Simmons Beautyrest EXTRA FIRM. I intend to have it last until college and beyond...forever! It's totally covered to protect against anything like urine. And since he'll be 6' 4" most likely, we went with extra long. Our bed does not have a boxspring. This means that rails won't work. He has not fallen out, though.
We have Extra Firm for our king, and I love it. I feel it's the only thing that gives enough back support. Anything less than extra firm also seemed flimsy and not durable enough. The mattress I ordered online from a company and someone delivered it.

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J.D.

answers from Philadelphia on

I'm not sure about the firmness, but we also have our daughters box spring and mattress on the floor. it's a nice height for them that way.

My recomendation though, don't use the rails. When my older one was 17 months, she climbed out of the crib, so i switched her crib to the toddler bed for a month before I put her in a twin bed. the toddler version of her crib didn't have much for a rail... she rolled out maybe two times, and then figured out how to stay on the bed!
it makes it MUCH easier when you go away, if they've know how to stay on a regular bed. know what i mean?

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M.M.

answers from Philadelphia on

Hi,
I just purchased a full size mattress for my 3 year old this past summer. I went to several places where the salespeople were trying to push mattress costing around $1000 which was far more than I wanted to spend. I ended up purchasing a mattress at The Matress Factory in Exton. The salesman that I worked with was Alvin Schock (I think he is the store manager). As soon as I told him I didn't want to spend much more than $500 and he saw my 3-year-old in tow he immediately showed me a number of options that were in my price range and were decent quality. I'd say it's a medium firmness mattress. I did get both the mattress and the box spring for $359.00 plus tax. It's kind of high but my little guy had been getting into my bed a lot of nights and had never rolled out so I wasn't too concerned with the height, plus I got a very plush area rug that is right next to his bed. I spent a few nights sleeping in it with my little guy when I first transitioned him and I found it to be very comfortable.

M

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M.E.

answers from Philadelphia on

Hi there,
I was just mattress shopping for my 2 1/2 year old yesterday! We are doing just like you--moving him into a full-size bed and using rails. I don't know if there are different types of rails, but I know at least some of them require a boxspring to use them. I'd rather have my son a little higher with rails than a little lower without. There is also such a thing as a low-profile boxspring. It's used by kids and others (sometimes older folks who don't want to have to climb so high to get in the bed). Also, some people use a bunkie board. Not sure if I spelled that right, but it's the thing you'd use to support the mattress on a bunkboard, and it's much thinner than a full boxspring. So those are options if you're worried about the height. There are also some bedframes (not sure what they're called) that you don't need to use a boxspring for, but I don't know much about that. If you're at all concerned about bedskirts, anything other than the traditional boxspring might make a bedskirt difficult or impossible. But not everyone uses them anyway. My theory is that I wanted to buy furniture, mattress included, that will last a long time, hopefully until my son is off to college and beyond. So we are going with a good mattress--not top of the line hugely expensive, but decent. Both places I looked mentioned one mattress in their stores as the "starter" mattress that most people get for the real little ones, and then the one they sell when they come back a few years later needing something else. We wanted to skip the starter mattress thing, especially because when they're so little, their weight is pretty insignificant and won't cause much weakening of the mattress anyway. I plan to put a good waterproof mattress pad on to eliminate the pee issue. One salesperson told us that it's been disproven that soft mattresses cause back problems--I have no idea if that's true. She also said kids tend to like softer mattresses. Again, that's her opinion. We went the middle route--not like a rock, but not the kind with the real plush top. If you're looking for a good quality mattress for less expensive than I've seen elsewhere, I highly recommend Magic Sleeper in Pottstown. We have our own king mattress from them, I've gotten a queen before this and my parents have always gotten their mattresses there. They have a website, but just so you know the Collegeville store is no longer open, just Pottstown. They make their own mattresses in the factory. We are probably buying my son's furniture at Feceras so I was thinking, we might as well get the mattress there. But it would have cost more for their starter mattress than for a good quality 15-year warranty mattress at Magic Sleeper. Plus, I don't know if you care about this, but all the major mattress manufacturers no longer make flippable matresses. This was important to me because I think that being able to flip the mattress makes it last longer. And for 50 bucks you can get your mattress made flippable at Magic Sleeper. So the price for the one we picked out (Chiro, not extra-soft or extra-firm, and NOT the starter mattress) would be $399 for the flippable mattress and boxspring. It would've been 50 dollars less for the non-flippable kind. And it has a 15-year warranty! At Feceras, it was over 600 for a non-flippable Serta that was considered their middle-of-the-road, with I believe only a 3-year warranty. And it was between 300 and 400 for their non-flippable starter mattress. So we're sold on Magic Sleeper.

Sorry so long but since I just went yesterday, I thought I'd give you the info I knew!
M.

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D.P.

answers from Pittsburgh on

Hi C., personally I would go with a firm mattress. You can always use a plush mattress pad on top if it seems "too firm" but you can't go the other way around.
O. thing I wanted to caution you on--don't do what I did, I bought a pretty inexpensive, unflippable mattress when my son was 3-1/2 and I regret it. Now 4 years later I wish I had spent more on a better quality mattress as it seems like I will need to replace this O. in another year or two. That's not saving, in the long run!

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