anyone cosleeping on memory foam?

[walkinbluesmama]

My husband and I are new to cosleeping (one of those couples who never thought they would cosleep until babe arrived!). We've been cosleeping with our daughter from day one and she is 9 mo old.

We are planning to bite the bullet and buy a king sized mattress to make sleeping arrangements easier for all 3. We are considering memory foam. Any safety concerns such as suffocation that you all are aware of? Anyone cosleep on memory foam with success?

The brief research we have done says absolutely NO memory foam, but also says absolutely NO cosleeping too, so we don't necessarily trust the source.

Any advice from you expert mamas (and papas) out there would be greatly appreciated!

[Avani]

I co sleep just fine on memory foam. No issues whatsoever.

[bass chick]

We co sleep on memory foam. We've been co sleeping for 6.5 years. After a couple of years I did some research to discover something about the off-gassing of memory foam being ridiculously high compared to other mattress materials. So I bought a regular mattress cover and a wool mattress cover to put on top of our mattress in hopes to cut down on the toxic fumes we breathe in.
We have never had any problems or worries with suffocation though so if that is your only concern then I see no problem.
I would never recommend memory foam though. My experience is that it compacts so that your mattress is permanently concave where you sleep. I have never had a sore back until I got a memory foam mattress (mind you I am also getting older...lol). I hate it and can't wait until we can get a new mattress. We have a Sealy or Serta something-or-other and paid over $2000 for it and the only thing I like about it is that it's a king size.

[treeoflife3]

personally, I wouldn't cosleep on memory foam if it were a purchase I were considering AFTER the birth of a child. Memory foam is extremely toxic and offgasses all sorts of nasty.

If you have the money, look into a latex mattress. It is also foam but all natural so no offgassing of yucky things you wouldn't want your child and family to breathe in. I have a latex mattress I scored brand new off craigslist and it is quite firm and perfect for cosleeping (although you can find places that sell softer mattresses if firm isn't your thing... I didn't think it was mine though til I got this mattress and realized the problem was never how firm my old mattress was.) plus it has the benefit memory foam has where you move on one side and the other side doesn't feel it as much.

They are expensive though so expect sticker shock if you decide to look into it. I think the cheapest one I ever found was about a thousand dollars. The one I scored would have been a great deal more than that.

I used to wake up sore and stiff (and I'm young!) but I don't anymore and I haven't had a single problem yet with my mattress.

[jee'smom]

if you do get one (i have one and LOVE it!!! and never wake up sore anymore!), please let them open it up, and sleep somewhere else while it off-gases for a bit. the first night we got ours, we all slept on it. i had an infant at the time, and i kept smelling the off-gasing and thinking "that can't be good", but in my sleep-deprived state, never thought to just get up with the baby and sleep somewhere else!!! the next morning, when the thought occured to me, i was so guilt-ridden. it's one of those stupid mommy-guilt things that i can't rid myself of.

i wish we would've gotten a natural latex one, but the first time i ever heard of them, it was about 3 months after i bought my memory foam, and i thought dh would kill me if i went and bought another one.

my in-laws bought the store-model that was open for a while and had already off-gassed. i wish i would've thought of that!!!

[creillysheehan]

LOVE our FIRM memory foam mattress! We've had it for several years, since before children, and have co-slept on it with 2 babies. My Baby G is asleep on it now! No problems.