S l e e p e r

When to Flip a Mattress

A reader writes:

Dear Sleeper,

Do you flip and turn your mattress at measured intervals? I know this is a pretty pedestrian topic, but we’re preparing in our slow way to purchase a new mattress, and I want to do right by it.

Signed,
A Heavy Napper

Dear Heavy:

You should flip and rotate your mattress once a season, because the soft padding around the coils can become compressed over time, and you don't want to be lying there in a trench. It's a fate that can befall the best mattresses — in fact, a higher-quality mattress is more likely to compress than a cheaper one, because it has more padding.

This instruction is for a two-sided mattress, with no pillowtop. You can't flip a one-sided mattress. Hence they wear out faster.

Furthermore: "When you buy a new mattress," says John Moy of Long's Bedding, in Manhattan, "you should flip it every month for the first six months, and then every three months after that." The reason for the initial frequent flipping, he says, is that you want the mattress to wear evenly from the start, before any identations from your body get "set." If you start flipping your mattress after you see indentations, it's too late.

Sweet dreams,
Sleeper

Coton Doux Pajamas, As Promised

It's hard to find good men's pajamas. So often they're an afterthought by women's sleepwear makers, printed with golf clubs or spaniel heads on heavy, disappointing cotton. These French pajamas ($88) are beautiful. Girl sleepers can steal them, too. If you paddle to Nancy Koltes at Home in the middle of a monsoon, as on this past Wednesday, you might be rung up (but not wrung out) by someone wearing them who has hung his trousers in the stockroom to dry.

They're available on the Coton Doux web site, too (click for the English version), but you won't see these gorgeous patterns.

Bringing a Scandia Pillow In for Service

This is Jesus Camacho, one of the ridiculously sweet people at Nancy Koltes at Home, in Soho. After a year of hard sleep, our Scandia Versailles was in need of a little professional attention; I brought the pillow in to Nancy Koltes, where I bought it, so they could send it to Scandia's restoration department. (You can of course mail the pillow in yourself, but then you would miss the chance to discover the Nancy Koltes staff working in beautiful Coton Doux pajamas, having changed into them after getting caught in a downpour on the way to work.) (More on Coton Doux tomorrow.)

Scandia charges almost nothing to clean a pillow ($18), and they can even adjust the loft by adding or removing down. That means you can turn your medium sleeper into, say, a firm. I requested this soft pillow be adjusted so it's somewhere short of medium. If you do that, there's a small charge to open the pillow ($14) and a little bit more for the down.

Scandia first sends a "diagnosis," so you know what you're in for. I hope they don't insist on a beheading. Sleeper is not especially gentle with le Versailles.

I should have the pillow back in a couple of weeks. I"ll let you know how it all turns out.

Meantime, the great advantage — or disadvantage, depending on your time and available cash — to visiting Nancy Koltes is that there is inevitably a new batch of pajamas or a sheet you can't imagine life without. I fell hard for the Suzie matelasse coverlets, from Portugal. They are fine and soft enough to use as blankets, deeply dyed, and light enough for summer. I've been waiting to find a plain-edge matelasse; you always see the traditional scalloping. This one has it, and the effect is sharper, modern. These are exactly like the matelasse covers friends have hauled home from Italy.

Too Dem Hot

Besides the fact that this is a good text to step back from and contemplate on a hot-as-torpedoes July afternoon in New York, when you'd stoop so low, hauling your sweaty self around, as to find a chilly Sleepy's and have a nap, I am amazed and moved that any political candidate, now or ever, would reference Tristram Shandy. A humble citizen reading this witty campaign flier need not necessarily get the joke, which just makes it even more amazing to me.

Goosedown in Summer?

Just when I was wondering about summer blankets and feeling dissatisfied with our cotton quilt, which doesn't settle about the body but instead lies there on top of it, like a big thick crêpe, Plumeria Bay* asked if I'd review one of their tropical-weight down comforters.

If you live in New York — or Washington, Buffalo, Ann Arbor, Tokyo — it's a bit hard to get your mind around down in the hot months. If you think about it, though, goosedown pillows are great all year; they don't feel hot in July (or January, in Melbourne), especially if you use linen pillowcases. For our Brooklyn bedroom, Plumeria Bay recommended their 800 fill goosedown tropical-weight quilt: "I think you'll be surprised how warm, yet comfortable, it will be," said founder Steve Clay.

The comforter is covered in Lyocell, a fabric made from beechwood fiber. It's good for summer because it is softer and more absorbent than their cotton batiste, Clay explained. The queensize is a generous 92 inches square, compared with the old 77 x 82-inch full/queen winter comforter from The Company Store.

On a recent series of punishing city nights, the quilt was silky, breathable, and settled gently over the body, exactly as I'd hoped. But at about 3 a.m., I woke up, too warm. Turning the AC to "freeze" helped, but of course letting bedclothes govern energy usage is not ideal.

We brought the quilt up to the North Shore, in Massachusetts, for a few days. (Letting bedclothes govern vacation plans is a fine idea.) The nights were in the 50s and low 60s, with low humidity. There, the comforter was ethereal. It also was quieter than the cotton-covered down duvet in our cottage. Quieter, you say? Yes. If you're not the heaviest sleeper, and it's a hot summer night, the faintly crackly textural noise of cotton is vexing.

A duvet cover is really necessary if you have a dog or a child. Plumeria Bay carries luxurious ones sized for the comforter's 92 inches. Or your dry cleaner can always whip up a cover from a couple of queen flat sheets.

To sum up: Goosedown is lovely in summer. The feel of it is more substantial than a top sheet — I can't sleep with such scant weight on me — and lighter and floatier than a summer quilt. But if you live in a very humid climate, or tend to sleep warm, look around for the lightest weight option you can find. Plumeria Bay offers a 650 fill that would be cooler. The Company Store has a 550 fill, but you'll have to contend with the smaller 88-inch size, and it only comes in cotton. L.L. Bean carries a lightweight goosedown blanket, but again, it's cotton, which does feel heavy compared with the Lyocell.

Given the heat in New York apartments in January, I am sure this 800-fill tropic-weight will become our winter quilt.

*I discovered Plumeria Bay, a small company in Washington state, on my search for the perfect pillow, and have been impressed with their level of service and the quality of their products (plus the free shipping). Whenever possible, I research and buy from small companies. Supporting someone's dream, as opposed to being just a blip in a share price, is something to sleep on, I reckon.