Stearns & Foster Estate Mattress Review: I Tried It

I have always been a fussy sleeper — I have to toss and turn multiple times before I can find the perfect position to drift off to sleep in (and even then, that doesn’t always work). I had been sleeping on a 9-year-old cheap $500 full mattress and noticed that I wasn’t able to get comfortable, and when I woke up in the mornings, I noticed my back was extremely stiff and my hips ached. As a runner, this was not ideal and sometimes caused me to skip out on workouts. All of this doesn’t even take into account my boyfriend, who was constantly woken up by my shifting on the old mattress.

It was clear that we needed to find a new mattress ASAP, but we had very specific requirements. My boyfriend had a bad experience with his previous medium memory foam mattress — he sank into it, so we knew that we needed a firm mattress, but a great firm mattress is a little harder to find these days. When I stumbled upon Stearns & Foster’s Estate Firm Mattress and had the opportunity to test it, I knew that was our best bet for a long-lasting mattress.

The feature that is most important to me is that the Stearns & Foster Estate mattress’s memory foam conforms to my shape. My body feels supported, but this firm mattress isn’t so hard that I feel uncomfortable, like with my previous mattress. It also isolates movement. I can still tell when my boyfriend rolls over, but if he shifts his sleeping position, the mattress doesn’t even move. The memory foam absorbs a lot of movement, though not all of it. The IntelliCoil system also keeps the memory foam cool — memory foam usually absorbs heat, which can be a disaster for hot sleepers.

Even agreeing to test a mattress for free is scary. For the weeks leading up, I wondered if I had made a terrible mistake and what would happen if we hated this mattress. Our old mattress was immediately put on the curb because we live in a small one-bedroom apartment and didn’t have enough space to store it for more than a day. Luckily, after one night of sleep, my boyfriend and I were completely won over by this mattress. We both got a great night’s sleep, and I woke up without any pain. It made me wish that I had gotten rid of our old mattress much sooner. Three months later, we haven’t noticed any differences in the quality. The features work exactly as they say they’re going to.

There’s one important thing to know before you purchase this mattress. The Estate mattress is very heavy; my boyfriend and I both had to lift it onto our bed frame. I’d say it’s somewhere around 80-100 pounds. Because of its weight, it’s strongly recommended that you put it on a foundation or slats that are more than three inches thick. This might require you to get a new bed frame. If you put it on slats that are thinner, the bed might start sinking in the middle and that won’t be covered by the 10-year warranty.

I would say that it’s absolutely worth it for firm sleepers.