Organic Mattresses

My boys are five and three years old.  Until two months ago, neither had ever had a “proper” bed.  When our big one finally agreed to sleep in a bed other than ours, we put him in an old futon. Our littlest one slept in a hand-me down crib and then a hand-me down toddler bed, but mostly he slept in our bed.

We just moved, and we wanted to splurge for real beds for the boys. We decided on bunk beds, which are currently separated into two beds since our five-year isn’t quite ready to sleep on top. As we were placing the order for the beds, we were all set to order the inexpensive foam mattresses.

Then I remembered reading a discussion on an online message board about the danger of fire retardants in mattresses. So I started googling.  After a few hours, I had convinced not only myself, but also my husband, that we needed to get organic mattresses for the boys.

Another marathon Google session found me in hot pursuit of an affordable organic mattress. You know how an organic tomato costs three times more than the non-organic one?  Well, when it comes to organic mattresses, the price differential is even more daunting.

The foam mattresses we had originally wanted to order were $75/mattress. The organic twin-size mattresses I was looking at started around $850. So while I was convinced that organic was safest way to go, I didn’t think we could swing it.

In the end, we discovered a “budget” organic option (budget in the organic world means $400/mattress), which has two inches of natural latex wrapped in organic wool and cotton.  Wool is a natural flame retardant, which means no nasty chemicals. Wool also has the added benefit of containing lanolin, which creates a natural waterproof barrier. (If you’re not sure why this is a good thing, then you probably don’t have a kid who has accidents at night.)

The mattress is like a thin futon. A very thin futon. The kids say they love their mattresses; my husband and I find them uncomfortably thin, but then the seller does say that the budget mattress is “not recommended for large adults.”  (I guess we qualify for large?!)

In order to afford the still-far-from-frugal budget mattress, my husband and I decided to postpone purchasing a new bed for ourselves. We’re saving up for a king-size organic mattress — and in the meantime, we’re sleeping on my old double bed from childhood. (This is a major sacrifice; my husband is 6-foot tall and weighs 220 pounds.)

This has run long, so tune in tomorrow when I share everything I’ve learned about flame retardants and other scary, off-gassing chemicals in non-organic mattresses.