EDS stomach sleeper, first DIY
So my wife told me it's time for a new bed. This meant moving to a king size so it's a fresh start. Went through the normal interrogation of what she likes and doesn't like and where the problems are. Went shopping trying to find a Goldilocks solution for our different sleep styles and ended up in the DIY rabbit hole. I've been known to over complicate projects like this, so stop me now if there are better solutions I should look at.
She has Ehlers-Danlos and sleeping seems to be increasingly problematic in the last several years. She'll often end up on the floor to sleep and she swears it's not just because I stink. She almost always sleeps on her front but will occasionally end up on her back. And as I said, she pretty often just sleeps on the floor next to the bed, which seems terrible to me and I want to try and fix that. She thinks she wants 'firm' and that anything like memory foam is the devil, but can't really tell me much beyond that.
Her: 5'9" 150lbs Wide hips and shoulders. EDS - alignment is important, her ribs bunch up if she's on her side, joints are obviously a problem area. She doesn't seem to complaint about pressure points, even after a night on the hard floor but she's always in pain so I'm not sure those issues would actually rise to complaints over everything else.
Me: 6'4" 200lbs Lean athletic build. I'm almost exclusively a side sleeper. I sometimes have trouble with pressure points in really firm beds, but I'm pretty tolerant of most designs. I have more issues with pillows but that's a topic I can manage alone.
Another possibly data point is that our current mattress is an original Leesa (2015 maybe?). Have no idea what's actually in it and it's basically dead now. When we first got it, I thought it was the greatest thing ever, and still think it works relatively well for me. I do notice that basically every hotel bed I'm on feels worse. She was okay with it at first, but now she says she thinks she sinks into it too much. That might just be it degrading because I definitely sink in more now too? But that's about the only other reference data I have and I'm not sure it's worth much.
I have a platform selected, so that's out of the way.
Lots of reading pointed me towards hybrid latex builds, though I suspect that maybe I've bought some marketing hype along the way too. Regardless, I like the concept of it and it seemed a reasonable place to start. So I was thinking I'd start with a split king TPS 15.5 for coils.
After that, I wanted some ability to mix and match and tweak, so I thought I'd just do 2" dunlop transition layer. Split this? Is firm too firm for her weight? Medium for me probably works?
Then comfort layer...sigh...I sort of wanted to try a talalay. Both sides medium? Some thought that her side should just be dunlop medium there.
I'm not sure weve ever actually been on a latex mattress. Maybe someone could suggest a commercial model we could seek out to try? But I have in my mind that just having a latex layer covered by a knit enclosure isn't going to be comfortable to me at all. And I'm concerned about the split build through all the layers being really weird in the middle, but maybe I'm over thinking that. Or maybe we put something on top of it, but honestly, we just don't seem to do very well with toppers and covers and things and almost always end up with just a fitted sheet over the knit bag on our current mattress.
Honestly, I think maybe just some ideas on where to start would be helpful. If anyone has some insight specifically on the EDS, I'd love to hear that. Part of me thinks the right mattress could really be a life improvement for her, even to the extent that maybe she's only belly sleeping because we don't have the right solution here yet.