I Slept On Tempur-Pedic’s Bestselling Mattress Topper — & Wow

If the idea of tackling a total bedroom overhaul makes your bank account shiver, then I'm here to let you in on a little secret: Mattress toppers (aka slabs of cushioning for a fraction of an entirely new bestselling mattress' price). While they aren't exactly a cheap buy, they won’t gobble up what's in your bank the same way that a full-on mattress would. After consulting the anonymous data collected from our top-performing shopping roundups, I decided it was high time to sleep on one of the most popular options from our mattress-topper Hype Machine in order to figure out first-hand just what type of support it has to offer. The most fanatically reviewed pad of the bunch? Tempur-Pedic’s TEMPUR-Adapt Topper, a three-inch memory foam bedroll with over 7,500 glowing online reviews. And right now, it's on sale for 40% off until March 6. Below, find my full review on how its firm-supportive-cushioning promise stacks up after I spent a full week sleeping on it IRL.

I’m historically a rock-like sleeper with no insomnia issues to speak of — and, with the recent addition of a newborn baby in our household, let’s just say I need very little convincing to close my eyes at a moment’s notice. I usually end the day with some neck and shoulder pain that will only subside if I get a good night’s sleep, so I'm always in search of hacks and improvements to ensure that my resting state is rejuvenating. The first thing I did when the topper arrived at my apartment was to roll it out on the floor, seeing how it would rise to the challenge of providing cushion on top of hardwood. (Granted, I didn’t spend a whole night on it, but the few moments that I laid there before the cat started walking on me were pretty heavenly.)

The term “a sinking feeling” is generally a precursor to something ominous, but in the world of memory foam, it’s very desirable — and is the only way to describe the feeling of lying down on this Tempur-Pedic mattress topper. “Wow,” I said out loud, to no one, as I disappeared into the cloud-like expanse. I wasn’t going to spend the whole night on the floor, but the fleeting moment of relaxation made me really excited to spend a full night with the topper on my bed. My current mattress, an innerspring queen with a pillow-top, is only about four years old — aka not quite old enough to replace but definitely starting to get a little long in the tooth (and, more technically termed, lopsided in its support distribution) — so the topper seemed like the perfect solution. (Note: three inches doesn’t seem like a lot, but modern mattresses are already quite tall, so the topper gave my bed a pleasingly hefty height of Princess and the Pea-like proportions.) This wasn’t connected to my physical comfort in any way, but it definitely made my bed look more appealing. Climbing into bed on the first night, I uttered the same refrain from earlier in the day: “Wow.” I laid on my side, sunk into the mattress, and promptly drifted off to dreamland.

As the week wore on, I became accustomed to the singular feeling of laying down on the Tempur-Pedic slab at bedtime — which I’d describe as a legitimate journey off to dreamland. An initial moment of firmness and resistance quickly gave way to the sensation of being fully accommodated and enveloped by the memory foam. There were actual phases to the adjustment. After a few daytime “test-rests,” when I laid in bed during waking (and not-utterly-exhausted) hours so as to fully observe the sensations of being on the mattress, I could feel the tiny movements of the topper continuing to make way for the shape of my body for what seemed like almost a minute. (I don’t think it was quite that long, but still.) In the morning, despite being bleary-eyed from my daughter’s 5 a.m. wake-up call, I was blissfully free of any aches and pains.

If your mattress is causing you any level of nighttime discomfort, you may want to consider this topper. The feeling of laying down at night and melting into its supportive surface can only be described as blissful. The only moments that it felt uncomfortable was when I was sitting up in bed during the day, tapping away at my laptop — there wasn’t enough support to keep my butt upright and it, therefore, caused my lumbar to ache a bit. But, you know what? I don’t want to be working in bed; it’s bad for sleep hygiene. It gave me the push I needed to find other places in my apartment in which to compute. Overall, I’m so happy this topper found its way into my bed — I can’t wait to sink into it right after I finish typing this sentence.