Bunk Beds & Matresses for Kids?

[Metasequoia]

xposted in the Childhood Years....

I'm looking to get bunk beds for the girls for xmas but most of them say that the mattresses can't be more than 6" thick. The mattresses I wanted are Ikea's Sultan Hasselback which is 11" thick. We tried out all of Ikea's mattresses & thought this one was the most comfortable & supportive.
Ikea offers the most affordable matttresses that are chemical free, I'm not sure we could afford two twins from an organic mattress store.
My gut says to go with something firm, but I'm not really sure for kids.

The bunk bed I like from Ikea is the Hemnes but I worry about the sturdiness. I found a nice bunk bed on Craig's List which I figure has outgased sufficiently but it won't match the kids' Ikea dresser. :

Anyone have bunk beds? How about affordable eco-friendly twin mattresses?

Help!

[True Blue]

We have the Tromso
And like it a lot. We have a regular thickness mattress on the bottom and a thinner one on top...however, the safety bars are really high, and I think you could easily get away with a thicker mattress up there, especially given the ages of your girls (and assuming the older one will be on top). They won't roll off the top even with a mattress that thick.

[~Nikki~]

We have a Hemnes single bed for DD, and it's incredibly sturdy. We're happy with it. No clue on bunkbeds. The kids are getting one for Christmas from their grandparents, but I'm not sure where they're getting it.

[annethcz]

When it comes to the sturdiness of the beds, go to Ikea and test it out. They usually have the ladder blocked off so kids can't climb on the beds at the store. But hold onto the side and shake it around a little. Pretend that you're a kid who is hanging off the side of the bed and wiggle it around. After doing this at my Ikea store, I decided to get a different bunk bed. I'm pretty sure we got ours at a mass merchandiser for cheap, and it has held up very well for several years now. My kids are ROUGH on furniture and the Ikea bunk beds just felt to flimsy to me.

[True Blue]

I should add that our Ikea bunk bed is EXTREMELY sturdy...the kids all use it as a jungle gym! They climb it on every side, hang on it, jump on it and from it...I think it varies greatly by model...for example, they do carry a wooden bunk bed for only $99 that leaves a LOT to be desired!