Hi, I've been reminiscing about days when I could sleep without pain and my waterbed (old hardsided bladder-style with baffles/fiberfill) keeps coming up in my mind. The only time I've slept as comfortably since then was on a tempurpedic mattress, until canoeing started.

So do any of you still remember yours fondly? I've thought about getting a softsided one for easier entry/exit and linen changing, and to keep my cats from putting holes in the mattress. Has anyone slept on both soft and hardsided, and if so, how do they compare?

I sleep on a 100% waveless hardside waterbed.  Absolutely love it and nothing like the old water filled bladder that people think of when you say waterbed.

I have tried softside at a store and didn't really like it.  It had a pad on top and you lost that feeling of being close to the water, hard to explain.

Waterbeds are one of the best kept secrets and people should definitely consider them.  You won't get a lot of responses here, this is a latex fanboy site

Yeah I know people here are fans of latex and memory foam. We had two Tempur-pedics, the first one was a queen and was the demo unit that we picked up cheap. I think the only reason it was so great was that there was a sprayed on polyurethane foam backing on the underside of the cover, making it waterproof. No sweat getting into the foam. It worked--our puking cats proved it probably 100 times over. The next one was king due to the increase in family size and it sucked so bad. Canoeing. Ugh, Discomfort City!

 

Hmmmm, I'd prefer going with soft-side, again, cats. Lots of them! We had a hardside one with baffles and I do miss it. I think it would be so ideal for side sleeping, which is what we prefer to do, though I spend a chunk of the night on my tummy. Mostly because it has cushion to mask the horridness that is our current bed setup.

 

We're supposed to look at a single-bladder waveless king softside today or tomorrow and it only has 2 layers between it and the top cover. I hope it's not too much, but just enough for cat claws to avoid doing damage. There's also one with the tubes. I can see an upside to that if you need to move the bed, and maybe to keep one sleeper from bottoming out when another sleeper climbs out of bed. I recall that happened with our old bed, but it might've been underfilled.

I am currently in a hardside 90% waveless (thought it was an 85% but I was wrong) and getting into it is absolute bliss.  Then 3 hours later my fingers start to fall asleep and my low back begins to ache.  In the morning, rolling out of it and draging myself to the upright position is hell, my back is stiff and stabbing pain shoots to my hips, my shoulders ache from lifting myself out of the bed. (I am quite heavy)  It has been 25 years in water land....time to dry off and find a new bed for me.

PS...An extra thick mattress pad has kept my cats toe nails out just fine.  Only 1 incident in 10 years.

Miz