I jumped on the all-foam, bed-in-a-box mattress bandwagon around six years ago, and while my sleep has been fine since then, my mattress never quite got me excited to hop into bed at night. For one, I often felt like the memory foam trapped heat—I found myself sweaty and annoyed some nights, especially before my period. And I could also never decide if I actually liked the feeling of sinking into my mattress. Sure, it was nice to be “hugged” in that way, but I missed the support and ease of movement I felt with my previous innerspring mattress.
When I started seeing more and more hybrid models on the market a few years later, I was intrigued, to say the least. The combination of squishy foam and responsive coil springs, along with the promise of better breathability compared to all-foam models, was calling my name. But I felt guilty at the thought of ditching my all-foam model, since it was only a few years old—the average lifespan of a mattress is around eight to ten years, according to the National Sleep Foundation.
My mom, however, did need a new mattress, and since I moved in with her in March 2020 for pandemic reasons, I realized I could give her my foam model (which she loved) if I ever wanted to try out a hybrid. So when I got the opportunity to test the DreamCloud Premier hybrid mattress for SELF last May, I hopped on it—literally. Cooler, springier nights, here I come!
How I Tested
I’ve been sleeping on the DreamCloud Premier for three months now, and I’m so glad I made the switch—I didn’t realize how much I missed coil springs, but I really, really did. To make sure my testing was thorough, I used SELF’s mattress buying guide to inform my review, which is based on criteria recommended by sleep experts. Read on for my full DreamCloud Premier Mattress review and thoughts.
Let me first say that it took me a while to warm up to the bed-in-a-box concept. Sleep is so personal, and it freaked me out that I couldn’t test out a mattress before having a huge, hefty box delivered to my doorstep. And while I’ve since come around to the idea (mostly because I liked my first mail-order foam mattress well enough, and the return policies for bed-in-a-box companies are typically very generous—more on that soon), the size and weight issue is still a pain.
Hybrid mattresses—which, again, have some combination of spring coils and foam layers—are typically heavier than all-foam types for obvious reasons, and the Premier was no exception. It arrived in a long, rectangular box with no handles that weighed nearly 100 pounds. I still can’t believe I got it up one flight of stairs to our apartment by myself. And I probably shouldn’t have—I was worried I would fall multiple times as I slowly rolled it up the stairs, so I highly recommend having two relatively strong people (ie. not my 70-year-old mom) maneuver it.