Making Foldable Beds more comfortable in Hybrid Trailers

[jdwickham]

y husband and I are 39. He has a bad back. I am a side sleeper and have a bad knee. But we love to camp and hike and ride bikes with our four children. We are trying to make our standard issue bed more comfortable for ourselves in our camper. When we bought our 2015 Starcraft Travelstar last year, we immediately bought a 2 inch memory foam topper for it. It is more comfortable, but it is still not enough. We have problems with what to do with it when folding up the beds. At first, I would try to fold up the memory foam with the mattress. But very quickly, I learned the memory foam is just too heavy and not manageable enough for my strength. So, my husband now rolls it up for me. I'd like to get back to doing something that I can do myself. Plus we need to get it to a place that it is more comfortable.

The biggest problem is that often times we are storing our 6 bikes and lawn chairs and cooler INSIDE the camper while driving, so not a lot of room to store extra bedding.

We have done some searching online and we've seen an option for a queen size fold-able mattress at Amazon. Anyone have experience with this?

We've also thought of getting a queen size 4 inch memory foam topper, cutting it in half and sewing up 2 covers for it, to make them more manageable. However, I'm not sure how this would work with them separating while we are sleeping and how heavy they would be to move.

What have you all done to make your FOLD-able beds more manageable in your hybrid travel trailers?

[bikendan]

DarilK wrote:
Hey
I know it old topic.But have question
Where can I see fold up beds?Tell me please
Regards Darik

Do you mean mattresses for a Hybrid TT?

[hybrid_dw]

DarilK wrote:
Hey
I know it old topic.But have question
Where can I see fold up beds?Tell me please
Regards Darik

Google is your friend, here:
Amazon

[DarilK]

Hey
I know it old topic.But have question
Where can I see fold up beds?Tell me please
Regards Darik

[jdwickham]

Thank you all for your suggestions! On our last trip, our children wanted to sleep in the tent, so we doubled up using one of their beds under ours with the 2" foam topper. My husband slept better, but I didn't. I have a 40 some degree curve in my spine and maybe that's why I am having so much trouble. Anyway, this Sunday we will be at a KOA outside of LegoLand for nearly a week, so I think we will try an air mattress under our foam topper (since we already have an air mattress). See how we do that way. Thanks for all the suggestions!

[JimNH]

we do the memory foam 2" topper rolled up in teh shower as well. I would love to just order a better mattress, but have not found a foldable "short queen" that is less than $700, IIRC...

If anyone has a source, I'd be interested for the "master" side; then I'd use the extra original mattress to double up on the other bunk.

JIM in NH

[Mainframe]

I have a new Shamrock 23ws, I previously had a Kodiak the Kodiak mattress was a 6 year torture test even 4 inches of memory foam couldn't cure LOL!

The Shamrock has a heated mattress that has springs etc inside and is actually comfortable and is heated! If you are looking into a mattress for your camper and want just a "mattress" solution order one from Forest River, one thing you could do is go look at a new 23ws and lay on the bed and try it, might be worth looking into, Other than being too small of a camper the mattress was the only complaint I had about the Kodiak.

If you got the mattress I think the heater controller is sold separate. If I would have known there was something I could have bought for the Kodiak (the Shamrock mattress folds so it would have worked as a replacement) I would have got one at least for my side of the camper!

[popeye59]

My wife and I use an 8" thick air mattress under the factory mattress. Once that's inflated fully it's very comfortable. We do lose some headroom, but neither of us mind as we don't normally sit up in bed. It's nice having the fold out sofa to the right of the bunk end (ROO 233S) so we can use it to step up and get into bed.

[nogle]

I recently bought a hybrid trailer and also found the mattress was definitely not enough. I also found that I felt the cold air from below so I purchased a couple of foam camping pads and placed them below my mattress to insulate. This worked great and then since I had a couple 2 " memory foam mattress covers I stacked 3 on top of each other and covered them with a fitted mattress cover which helps them stay in place. when I am done I roll each up and store them on the folded down dinette area. I sleep great, and no aching hips or back when I get up. Getting good sleep is worth purchasing memory foam and it stays in the trailer when I am done traveling.

[poppin_fresh]

I personally don't care for memory foam toppers, tried one, hated it.

We bought a queen sized pillow topper from BBB that fits our bunk mattress perfect and is like sleeping on a cloud. The good thing is that if you buy something and don't like it, they will happily take it back. For us, second time was the charm.

[scottsnider]

I can't complain my 2010 Coleman HTT cost me $1.00 and did not come with stock mattresses, but with air mattress so we go with that and we are fine, found you need extra bedding under you when its cold out but thats no big deal, Deflate them when we travel and done and done.

[crazysimi]

we use a air mattress with a 2" memory topper and sleep great now

[rwbradley]

One word of advice if you decide to buy something and cut to fit, go to the big blue store and buy a cheap electric carving knife (for carving a roast or turkey etc). They will cut most types of foam quite cleanly.

[rexlion]

I suggest that you experiment a bit with your memory foam. You have 2" foam, so double it over and take turns lying on the 4" of foam. How does it feel? If it's good, buy another 2" memory foam and lay it overtop the 2" you now have (lighter weight to roll them up separately, plus you already paid for one of them so why get rid of it?). If 4" of memory foam does not satisfy you, it's time to look for a different solution.

Possibility #1: an air mattress, either alone or with the 2" foam on top. Even a couple of those individual-size air cushions they sell for camping, laid side by side, might do the job under your existing foam.

Possibility #2: add some sort of cushioning fibers. The "Cuddle Ewe" topper is made of wool, do an internet search for it. Or experiment with some comforters or sleeping bags laid underneath the memory foam.

[Campfire_Time]

I can't offer much advice. We simply throw an open sleeping bag on top. Seems to be enough for us, we both sleep like rocks. For now. We're well into our 50s so I imagine that at some point we may need something more.

Our old hybrid actually had a split mattress and it wasn't split down the middle, more like 60/40. So we had to get a topper just to keep one of us from sliding off the mattress.