Have you ever had one of those years when everything expensive you own needs replacing? Well I seem to be going through that this year, with a multitude of essential things all breaking down, melting, leaking, etc, you get the idea...

Well, one of the items I need to replace is my mattress, but to be honest, I can't afford a decent new one at the moment (its low down on a looong list). One day a friend recommend a mattress topper, and to be honest I had never heard of this before, but it sounded like a reasonable short term solution to my lumpy mattress woes.

Having no idea where to start looking I went with a quick search with the first company that sprung to mind: Silentnight. Who doesn't love sleepy hippos with small, feathered bed partners? I quickly found their 'Impress' range of memory foam mattress toppers, available in all standard sizes from single up to king-size. The retail price for these are about £80, but after a bit of shopping online, the best price I could find was ASDA Direct, at £45 for the standard double size.

Once I got the topper delivered, I eagerly stripped the bed (I think it's the first time I have ever 'eagerly' stripped & made the bed...) and took a look inside the box. Within you will find a very tightly rolled sheet of memory foam, and a washable fabric sheet with elasticated corners. The sheet is used to cover over the foam before you put down a conventional bed-sheet.

The mattress topper itself was a rather mildly disappointing looking thing once I unrolled it and lay it out on the mattress. Although I'm not quite sure what I was expecting to be honest. It sort of looks like I have rolled a large sheet of pastry over my mattress. However, if I had rolled a bit of pastry over the mattress, I would have at least made sure it reached all the edges, which this sheet doesn't. It stops about an inch short on both long sides, which is a bit annoying, but since I don't sleep that close to the edge (unless my girlfriend starts elbowing me in her sleep) it isn't a major issue. According to the packaging, memory foam was developed by NASA, so it must be good...(I was going to insert a joke about expecting a heavenly sleep, but I decided against it)

After I placed the topper and cover over my mattress, for the sake of all Dooyoo readers I had to test it out. So I took upon myself the hardship of lying on my bed and rolling over a couple of times. I may also have dozed for a few minutes. Before fitting the topper, sleeping on my mattress was a bit like camping and finding a few stones underneath your roll mat. Quite a few springs had started to stick up, and had a bad habit of sticking right into your kidneys, or other tender areas, but I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised that although the topper was a bit thinner than I was expecting, it covered over the lumps well, and to a certain degree made it feel like a new mattress. The memory foam moulds to your shape, and I found this quite comfortable whilst sleeping on my side. My partner also agreed that it was far comfier than before. I have also read that memory foam is good for people that suffer from bad backs, as it allows you to sleep in a more natural position. Since I don't tend to have many issues with my back, I can't really comment on this, but I can certainly understand how it could help, since I do feel the mattress supports me a bit better now.

One side effect I have noticed is that the memory foam layer makes it far warmer in bed now. I can only assume that the foam better insulates your body heat, rather than it spreading through the mattress. Whilst this is fine now that it is getting colder, I imagine I will get over-warm come next summer (yes, it will be warm next summer, I promise...)

Overall, I have been pretty pleased with my Silentnight mattress topper. To be honest, it will never be as good as a brand new memory foam mattress, but it does work well as a short term stop-gap. It has defiantly improved the comfy-ness of my mattress, and has smoothed over the lumps and bumps. I do worry about how long it will last before it starts to get too flattened to work effectively, but hopefully by then I will have bought a new mattress.