S l e e p e r

It's Featherbed Season!

...a good time to remember the pleasures of this underrated winter sleep option. I was initially suspicious. I became a convert to the featherbed faith. The Muppets are believers, too.

Do You Need a Duvet?

A reader writes:

Dear Sleeper,
Do you have a take on duvet covers?  We have bought a nice cotton one in a bright pattern that really makes the room, but as I'm spending money on an expensive down comforter that is designed to be lightweight, it seems  I'll be weighing it down with the cotton duvet cover. The comforter maker recommends finding a very light duvet cover to see the benefits of the light down comforter.  So... do you then have to buy a separate bedspread if your duvet cover is plain?  Does that then weigh the down comforter so it's no longer as "lofty"?  I'm trying to find a balance between getting the look and feel of a light, airy, cloudy bed and still having a bed cover that looks great from a design standpoint.

Puzzled in Duvet Land

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Dear Puzzled:

Here are the disadvantages of duvet covers:
1. Truly annoying to get the down comforter in and out of them.
2. Weirdly expensive, like certain other items in the world.
3. Bad design.

Here are the advantages of duvet covers:
1. They keep your down comforter clean.

Now, you do have to keep your down quilt covered, unless you live in a dirt- and dust-free, child-free, pet-free, food-crumb-free, human-free home. You shouldn't clean a down quilt more than more than once a year — no matter what the label instructions say — because it damages the tiny goose feathers and shortens the life of your investment.

You don't need to shell out for a duvet cover, though. You can use a lightweight blanket as a coverlet over the quilt, then tuck it and the comforter in around the mattress. Because there's just a top sheet between you and the quilt, you'll still get that fluffy feeling. (There are a lot of swell blankets out there now; Area's "Harry" blanket is pictured at right.) If you prefer the floaty feeling, you can buy a couple of lightweight queensize sheets (Donna Karan and Calvin Klein make nearly transparent sheets, often available at discounters) and have your dry cleaner stitch them into a duvet cover for a relatively cheap price. If the lightweight sheets are a plain solid color, you could drape a spread over the foot of the bed, or choose some knockout sheets and pillowcases to add design interest.

I never quite understood the appeal of the free-floating down comforter, though. To me, one of winter's chief pleasures is covering yourself with some heavy bedding. In New York in February, I would be oh so happy in a queensize panini press.

Yours amidst the sound of knocking radiators,
Sleeper

Down Comforter Advice

A reader writes:

Dear Sleeper,

I moved to a new apartment and I'm getting a new queensize bed. Unfortunately, my old down comforter was destroyed by water damage while in storage. I would like to buy a new one and was wondering if you had any advice. My price range is $200-$500 and I live in New York City, where the summers are hot and winters are cold, although I keep my thermostat around 65-70 degrees. I read your article on Plumeria Bay and was wondering if you recommend that brand, or maybe I should just buy a generic from Bed Bath & Beyond.

Also, how much "hang" should the comforter have over the side of the bed? If you have a standard-thickness mattress (9"-13"), a 90" wide queen comforter will only have a 2" hang off the end of the queen mattress. Is that enough? Or do you go with the king, which would leave 12" off the end and over the box spring, which might come dangerously close to the floor? I've noticed that most online stores cheat and have pictures of full/queen comforters on fullsize beds, which produces a perfect hang.

Thanks for your advice!

Best,
Uncomfortable New Yorker

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Dear Uncomfortable:

In your price range, I do like Plumeria Bay. I have the 800-fill tropical weight down comforter in queen ($546), covered with Lyocell, a fabric made from beech fibers. It's warm, but not too warm, and the material is soft and silky. Scandia makes a nice comforter, too. Their lightweight goosedown is a generous 102" wide ($550). I have found no down "leak" with either of these brands, whereas my old Company Store comforter trailed feathers (and was skimpy, but the company has since enlarged their sizes).

We have a platform bed, wth no box spring. So the hang, given the comforter's 92 by 92 inches, is ridiculously long. But here's the thing: I've started doing what our new housekeeper does — I tuck it in! I wondered whether tucking a down quilt would mush the feathers along the edge, but it doesn't.

I use a top sheet, then the comforter layer, then a light blanket on top. You tuck everything in, like wrapping a package.

If you use soft flannel sheets (my favorites are a cheap set the color of vanilla frozen custard, from BB&B), going to bed feels sort of like slipping into a padded mailing envelope. Mmm.

Now about those catalogues, with their dubiously fluffy comforters. One of their display secrets, besides, as you say, showing full/queen comforters on fullsize beds, is stuffing a king comforter into a queen duvet. You could do the same. But why pay for a king comforter, or a duvet cover? If you get at least a 92-inch wide comforter for a standard-thickness queensize mattress — or otherwise aim for at least 12 inches of hang — and use the layering trick above, you get around the whole duvet question. I think it's much nicer to snuggle into a tucked-in bed.

Sweet winter dreams,
Sleeper

Memorable Sleeps: Somewhere Over the North Pole

My husband and I recently adopted a four-month-old sleeper.

After an amazing, exciting, exhausting three weeks in southeast Asia, it was time to fly home to New York with our new babe.

Do you know about bassinets? The kind you can get on airplanes? If you're booking a long flight and traveling with a baby under about 22 pounds, request one. It cunningly attaches to the bulkhead in front of you, becoming a cozy dresser drawer for infants. There you are "reclined" in coach, or, as we were, in premium economy — very nice, but not business class — while baby lounges deliciously.

For days we dreaded this flight. How could we mix 30 bottles of formula on our tray-tables? Surely we would be pounded by the collective glare of a hundred passengers when baby screamed over four continents, or even one territory. Can you change a diaper in one of those restrooms, or even shut the door behind you while joggling a small wombat? We figured twenty-three hours of trippy (at best) time awake was a foregone conclusion.

But in between Thai Supper #3 and Thai Supper #4, in between staring at the baby, which was more fun than any of the cable channels, I did somehow fall asleep.

I dreamed of flat things. Bookshelves, bowling alleys, the floors of lakes. I dreamed hungrily of horizon lines, rooflines, the paved surfaces of empty roads through the desert, a vacant beach, a ruler lying peacefully in the middle of a desk. I was madly jealous of that ruler. I almost became the ruler. I so craved the sensation of horizontalness that I finally woke up, had an epiphany, pushed our enormous nappie-and-bottle-stuffed duffle into the aisle, and lay down underneath the baby, feeling triumphant as a polar explorer.

Therewith followed the coldest, loudest, shallowest, most miserable nap. An electrical plate made an impression on my left cheek that did not even fade by the time we flew over Visby. Miraculously, the little mammal, for his part, slept almost all the way home in that bassinet. It was Baby Business Class.

Stay tuned for more tales, and insights, under the new category Baby Sleep!