Upselling Myself

I’ve been delinquent in my quest for a mattress for the Peanut’s crib.  We lucked out when a friend of S’s gave us a crib and mattress.  The crib is in the nursery (fancy name for his bedroom). The mattress we gave to S’s mom so she could use it in the crib she put in S’s room there.  We’d use a new mattress for the Peanut’s regular use.

Crib mattresses range from:

•  super inexpensive $60 things, 
• $150 Beautyrest pocket coil types (you know, incase someone throws a bowling ball on the bed while he’s sleeping)
• $170 – $300 ones that focus on the words “health” or “eco” or “nature”
• $400 ones that are “organic”.
• incredibly expensive ones that are made entirely of rubber cultivated by vegan gnomes in a hidden happy land. 

It’s confounding…

• Does organic really matter?  Considering the toxic load he’s exposed to any given day, does a little bit more toxic material make any difference?  Can’t we just let it off-gas for a couple of weeks and put on an organic buffer between him and the supposed SIDS inducing cancer-bed? 
• Firmness is key for SIDS, but what about comfort?  Which ones are firm but horrid (baby gets no sleep) vs firm but comfy (baby gets sleep = we get sleep)?
• Waterproof makes sense to me, although some people advocate the wool or cotton wrapped ones without any plastic, nylon or vinyl (because these are materials of the devil).  But wouldn’t you just end up buying a mattress pad with a waterproof backing made of… plastic, nylon or vinyl? Or of some cloth treated with something that will eventually wear off?
• Infant only or infant on one side and flip it to the other for toddler age?

S and I recently bought a new mattress for our own use – it was on sale (but there are always mattresses on sale somewhere, at least for adults).  It’s fabulous so far.  We’re loving it.  But it reeked of chemicals for at least a month after we got it.  Reeked!

Thoughts of the Peanut experiencing a similar month don’t sit well with me.  Maybe if I had bought a crib mattress months ago, any off-gassing would be done by now.  But I didn’t.  Plus, the more I think about indoor air quality and asthma, allergies etc. – maybe reducing VOCs and other toxins whenever it occurs to me is a good idea.  And even if you let it off-gas to the point where it doesn’t stink anymore, it still contains toxic chemicals mere millimeters away from a sleeping baby’s nose (you know, when they’re old enough to roll over on their own).

Now the question is, how much do you have to spend to get a mattress that doesn’t have harmful chemicals (or, at least, has much less harmful chemicals)?

The $170 mattresses (at Sears.  They’re much more expensive at baby stores) that use “natural” , “health”, or “eco” in their names seem to just be a slightly modified regular mattress with a removable cover made of organic material — with all the  “no PVC, pthalates, bisphenol A”  language pertaining to the cover only.  They have soy-based core and some have memory foam on the toddler side.  These are largely polyurethane (when I was reading about soy-based foam used in sofas, it turned out that less than half the foam ingredient was soy, with the rest being traditional polyurethane). And polyurethane, being highly flammable, requires lots of toxic flame retardants.

For $300 you get a fancier sounding version of the same thing. An innerspring mattress with “natural” soy-based foam, hypoallergenic latex (I thought latex was an allergen? I guess it’s hypoallergenic in that it doesn’t make a nice home for dustmites etc) and a bamboo cover treated with crypton green technology (yes, crypton green technology).

For either of these price points, the description of the mattress seems to be heavy on style and catch-phrases, low on substantive detail.  And I’m all about the substantive detail, baby.

And for $400 you get an innerspring mattress made with organic cotton, and covered with polyethylene (food grade plastic).  Yes – evil plastic, but non-toxic plastic.  And wrapping something in plastic takes care of the waterproof issue as well as the dust mite issue. Most reviews say it’s quite comfortable, and it gets a lot of reviews – which make me wonder if there’s a marketing machine behind it all.  But the website clarifies what it does contain, and what it does not contain, and describes the non-toxic flame retardant used. 

So, it looks like my choices are $170 for a slighlty less toxic mattress (or $300 for something similar with crypton green technology.  Ha – I just love saying “crypton green technology”.  I also like saying “retardant”), or $400 for something that might actually be the real deal and provide significantly less toxic crap (presuming that less toxic = good).

Hmmm maybe it’s going to be a $400 mattress for our boy.  For the 2 or so years he’ll sleep on it. 

As luck would have it, we still have some cash given to use as shower gifts (yay family and friends!)  that can be put to good use on the mattress.