I wonder if we are ever as obsessed with sleep, our own and other people’s, as when we have children? I seem to have spent the last eight years revolving around getting people to sleep on time, not allowing people to go to sleep in the wrong moment and making sure people are worn out or refreshed enough so that they will comply with the above. And the reason I do all this? So that I myself can get a good night’s sleep… See… Sleep centric! I think it’s just part and parcel of being a parent but a lot of life does revolve around sleep… Well, half of it when you’re a baby right? We’ve all heard ‘my baby went 7-7 from 3 days old’ haven’t we?! Only my babies NEVER slept 7-7 and still don’t. Only one of them actually IS a baby still but at 6 and 8 the other two still only manage about 8 hours and even then they often wake in the night. I know this because I am awake in the night with the baby so much. AND they come in wanting to climb in with us, have a new glass of water, tell me they’d forgotten yesterday but in just two hours time they will need an elaborate piece of homework completing as the deadline is ‘tomorrow’…

Let’s just say we don’t get much slumber in the Rocknrollerbaby household and we’re FINE about it. Honest. Totally FINE!

In all seriousness though, whether they actually sleep properly or not, making sure they have a safe and comfortable place to do so is probably at the forefront of all parent’s minds from the moment they hold a tiny baby bundle in their arms. There is lots of advice for safe sleeping on the Lullaby Trust site here – so please do take a look – we need to make our own decisions about what is best for us and for our babies and remember that the advice given in the UK is vastly different to that given in other European countries so do research but I think understanding the basics is necessary. As is choosing the right mattress for whichever place your baby and children sleep.

It’s expensive buying new mattresses for new babies but going against the advice when it came to that seemed barmy for me so with Jimmy we threw out a perfectly unused cot mattress and bought a new one. Florence had barely slept on it but there we are, it was the safest advice and we did it. This did mean the mattress we bought for Florence’s toddler bed had to be inexpensive and of the ‘cheapest one there was’ variety. We intended to change it as time went on but… We didn’t and a couple of years later when she got a bigger single sized bed and Jimmy moved to her toddler bed, he went from a good quality mattress in the cot (that he also never slept on) and onto her cheapy toddler bed second hand mattress…

Fast forward a few years and at age 6 he was still on it – I have to point out that he’s quite little and a toddler sized bed is actually plenty big enough for him. So with hindsight we should have bought a cot that turned into a bed and then the mattress would have been the same size but we didn’t and we never got around to buying him a decent mattress then in the end it was ripped, uncomfortable and needed to go to the tip. Its only redeeming feature was that it was wipe clean (Jimmy is sick in the night a lot so this was a god send) but because of that it was plastic. Not very bed welcoming huh!

In step his shiny new and comfortable mattress from Merifor and for the first time since he was(n’t) sleeping in a cot he has finally a new and comfortable mattress for his bed. It really is excellent quality and Merifor have taken safe sleeping as the highest of priorities. The rigorous testing Merifor insist upon means safety and quality based on their expert knowledge to begin with. The Merifor story is a really interesting one but at the heart of it is that they care. They want to provide a safe place for children to sleep most importantly and also, if you buy a mattress from them it comes with a 4 year guarantee making the cost feel much better on the purse and I would highly recommending buying a cot/bed so that you don’t end up having to buy a new mattress every time you have a baby for both the baby AND the older child moving to a bigger bed.

We should have bought this mattress for Jimmy a long time ago but he has it now and it’s not just him who was excited. He doesn’t like to spend a lot of time in his own bed so we wondered if a newer and actually comfortable mattress might make a difference. And… It has! I don’t know if we can totally credit the mattress for fewer arrivals by him into our room at night but it’s certainly a coincidence if not! The Felicity mattress has been excellent and he says, after a month of sleeping on it, that it is really lovely to go to bed.

What’s exceptional aside from the quality and comfort is that we are not having to compromise on the fact that his last bed was wipe clean – remember the only redeeming feature? – because this mattress has a cover over it which will unzip and can be washed at 60 degrees, and underneath is a fully wipe clean mattress that you are able to use with or without the cover. For us this is great as obviously with the night time sickness Jimmy experiences it will at some point be the case that he’s been sick on the cover but still needs to go back to bed. He has the best of both worlds by not having to sleep on plastic all the time yet still being able to when it’s necessary. He said he felt sick the other day and I whipped the cover off so that he slept on just the plastic part of the mattress just in case – again this is very helpful!

I really do wish that we’d bought Jimmy a decent mattress like this from the start and had a cot which turned into a bed because I thoroughly do think this is worth the money. It has everything we require from it practically but it’s also a safe and comforting place for Jimmy to sleep. we are all pretty pleased with it, especially him!

We were gifted the mattress for an honest review.

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