Life Lesson: don't buy a mattress online

I’ve been waking up with lower back pain for several years at this point, but it was finding the receipt that confirmed our mattress is 13 years old that put an itch into my brain about wanting to get a new one. Philip did some research (as he does), we took sleep surveys about our positional needs (we’re both mainly side sleepers), and decided to go with a Helix based on their rave reviews. We anxiously awaited the shipping updates, and it only took about a week for two giant boxes to arrive on our porch. One had the mattress and the other had the topper, each rolled up and vacuum sealed inside. Before we could set them up, we had to do some rearranging. The boys were sleeping on twin sized floor beds, side by side, with an approximate six inch gap between, which seemed to be my designated spot 🙄. After measuring, I discovered that our king didn’t take up anymore room than the two of theirs, and it remedied the crack problem, so I was happy to relocate our old bed to Ash’s room. Three or four nights a week I would end up in there when one of them (mostly Ash) would wake me up, so at least this way I would have an actual spot to lay that didn’t involve sleeping on a cold ass metal bed rail. 

After we got our old bed situated in Ash’s room, Philip unleashed our new mattress in our room. We decided to downsize with our new bed, because now that we aren’t sharing it with two other little people, we often felt like we were sleeping miles away from each other. We decided to go with a queen, which meant we also had to buy a new bed frame and bed clothes. You may remember me saying before that we had a duvet cover instead of a traditional comforter, and while it may be considered to be more luxurious, I hated changing that duvet cover with a passion. The idea of a new mattress was exciting enough, but unburdening myself from that chore was equally thrilling! Of course, with Snowmagedon on the way at the end of January, none of these things arrived at the same time, so we only had a mattress for the first couple of days. 

Once out of the package and given sufficient time to fluff, the Helix Sunset, their softest mattress available, seemed comfortable enough, but one night was enough to prove otherwise. The next morning, we both agreed sleeping on that mattress was akin to sleeping on a slab of concrete. We could’ve just moved our kitchen table upstairs and had a similar slumbering experience. Helix has a 100 day satisfaction or your money back guarantee, BUT they require you to keep it at least 30 days before they’ll start a return. So, for 30 days, we were just counting down, wishing we would’ve saved ourselves some money and just bought a sheet of plywood, which is surely softer than that insanely expensive POS mattress 😂. I already struggle with sleep, if anything at all wakes me up (someone coughs, ice slides on the roof, that godforsaken train blows the damn whistle at 2 am 🤬), I can’t go back to sleep. The firmness only intensified that issue because I was waking up due to being uncomfortable. I actually only made it three entire nights on it. I’m so thankful our old mattress is in the room right next to ours, because it may contribute to my back pain, but at least it’s comfortable! I prefer not to sleep with the kids but even that was better than suffering on the Helix mattress. Philip wears his watch to bed, which tracks his sleep score, and while sleeping on that mattress, it plummeted from a norm of 90's into the 70's! So we didn't just imagine this issue, there is technology to back up our claims 😂. 

The Helix mattress is the most uncomfortable bed I’ve ever slept in, and we used to travel a lot pre-kids. I’ve encountered many mattresses and I can’t remember hating one more 😂. Every morning, Philip and I agreed that it was not getting any better and having the requirement to keep it for 30 days is bullshit. 

the amount of times I've come upstairs to find this sleeping in our new bed is ridiculous

Philip had his first ever out of state work trip and he went to Texas for 3 days. The snow pushed our bed frame arrival back until the day after he left. If there's one thing I'm terrible at, it's following 2D directions to create 3D objects, so constructing most things in our house is a task left for Philip. I was anxious to get the new bed all put together, despite the fact that I already hated the mattress, so I gave it a go. My book club group chat was doing a photo an hour challenge, so I jokingly told them I'm not allowed to put furniture together whenever I sent my hourly update with the bed rails included. I sent Philip a photo, too, whenever I finished, and the he said, "Good job. Did you have to redo any of it?" 😅. The answer was, yes, one piece 😂😂. 

Speaking of photos, my husband and I couldn't be more different in that regard. He traveled to a place he has never been and joined people he's only met online (he works remote), and he took 2 videos and 13 photos, 7 of which were various views from the plane to show the boys, who haven't flown yet. I, on the other hand, stayed home and took 18 videos and 44 photos, 11 of which were of my brother's cat 😂. He was being super funny getting inside of the tote I took to their house with me. Now, the book club hourly photo challenge certainly increased my count, and most of the photos didn't make the keep pile, but still. 

This is Wickett. He's a box thief.

Even though I took my tote back, he wasn't deterred from finding himself a new seat

This is why I took 18 videos. They had a blast breaking jumping over the masking tape line

Fortunately, it didn’t take us long to do what we should’ve done to begin with, which was go to an actual store and try out the mattress before buying. Actually, it was Day 4 when we went shopping, which was the first weekend day we possibly could. Philip hadn't even been home for 24 hours when we hit the road to shop 😂. Our second new mattress arrived 3 weeks later, and while I was concerned about the potential for hating it, too, the bar was pretty low. The second new mattress, a Serta Sealy, was far superior and about half the price!

The only redeeming quality of the Helix is the return process, because it's very lenient. In bigger areas, they partner with organizations, where they pick up and donate your used mattress, but we don't have anything like that here. While that put the effort on us to get rid of it, they afforded us three options: 

1. donate it to a local organization

2. give it to a community member

3. destroy it

We chose option 2, and all that was required was a form to be filled out and photos showing the mattress being loaded onto a vehicle. I was happy to give it to someone who could use it, rather than throwing it away (you all know I don't throw useful things away). I just hope the recipient doesn't injure her back sleeping on it 😂.