The Hubs and I were in desperate need of a new mattress about six years ago.

But, you can always find something else to spend that money on, can’t you? So, we put it off and put it off.

We bought a foam topper that helped tremendously, but honestly, all it really got us was another good year or two — which ultimately turned into another six years. FINALLY, it was time to invest into ourselves by buying a new, non-toxic mattress.

Why a New Mattress Was Necessary

The Hubs and I are in our very early 30s, and we felt like we were having issues that we’re simply too young to have. My hips and sacrum had been going numb for years if I laid in one position too long, forcing me awake throughout the night to change position, feel the blood flow back into the numb area, and hopefully get another hour or two until I woke up numb again. This was a nightly routine that seriously interrupted my sleep cycle. David, who is so not a complainer, started complaining about stiffness everywhere, but especially his lower back about six months ago. It only got worse as time went on. My lower back had been consistently stiff and sore upon waking for years, and I sorta learned to ignore it because once I got up and moving, the soreness went away. Until it didn’t, and my lower back was always hurting.

We’ve been seeing a chiropractor routinely since 2008, so I knew that our pain and stiffness weren’t because of subluxations or other spinal issues. The common thread connecting our pain was our old bed.

I’m, unfortunately, a really light sleeper; and The Hubs is a heavy sleeper. He was waking me off and on through most nights either with movement, light snoring, or both. If he shifted position at all, I felt it and woke up. I was always nudging him to make him stop snoring. It was clear to us both that a change was absolutely necessary.

Finding a New Bed

As you would expect, I poured probably 100+ hours into researching non-toxic mattresses, because I wasn’t about to buy a standard inner-spring, pillow top mattress that was made of harmful chemicals that would off-gas for years. I wanted to know everything so that I could make the best possible decision for The Hubs and me — without going broke in the process. In the end, we decided on the Essentia Classic8 bed.

Then, at the last minute, I came across a blog post from one of my most trusted blogging sources for all things natural and crunchy. Mommypotamus was reviewing the non-toxic Intellibed she had been enjoying for a few months, and it was a bed I had never heard of. Of course, I started wavering in my choice for the Essentia bed — because I seriously trust Heather, and if she says something is mind-blowingly awesome, I listen to her. And she hasn’t failed me yet! 😉

I started looking for more Intellibed reviews and came across yet another of my favorite and most trusted bloggers, Lauren at Empowered Sustenance; and lo and behold, she was raving about Intellibed too.

Finally, while I was reading every last word on Intellibed’s website, I happened to notice some celebrities who used Intellibed, and Chuck Norris was one of them. As soon as I told The Hubs that Chuck Norris slept on an Intellibed, his response was, “Well, if Chuck Norris has one, that’s good enough for me.”

So I decided to order our king-size Intellibed 30 Deluxe.

Ordering

The Intellibed website has a live chat feature, so I decided to try it out to ask some questions. This was around 10:00 p.m. on a Friday night, and there was actually a person to chat with! I was really impressed by that. He answered all my questions, I still felt good about our decision, and I told him I would be calling first thing Monday morning to make the official order.

Josh, my representative, was super friendly and very careful to get my order correct. He checked and re-checked all my info, and then told me that Intellibed was so committed to good sleep on their bed that someone from customer service would be calling me at three days, 30 days, and 60 days to see how we were adjusting to our new bed and make sure we were loving it. If, at any point, we weren’t absolutely in love with our Intellibed, we had up to 60 days risk-free to return it for a full refund, and Intellibed would foot the bill to have it picked up and shipped back to their warehouse.

Josh also explained the delivery process and told me to make sure we kept the box our mattress came in so that we would have it in the unlikely event that we needed to return the bed. All we had to do was wait — for what felt like forever.

Delivery and Set Up

Our bed was brought approximately three weeks after I placed my order by a third-party company that Intellibed contracts out for deliveries. They brought it in, wrapped in plastic, unwrapped it, set it up on our box springs, and I signed to confirm the delivery. This was quick and painless and very helpful since The Hubs was away at work when the bed was delivered, and there’s a snowflake’s chance in hell that I would have been able to set it up myself. Also, we live in an apartment, and I can’t imagine having a king-size mattress up against the outside of the building all day until David got home.

As soon as I signed and the delivery truck left, I realized that they didn’t leave a box. I was so afraid that we wouldn’t be able to return the bed if needed, so I called Josh right away to find out what to do. He said it was no big deal, but made a note of it on my file, just in case.

Sleeping on the Intellibed

In order to take advantage of the 60-day trial period, you have to buy a mattress protector from Intellibed. I understand why this is necessary, but I was a little skeptical. Do they re-sell the used beds??? was my immediate thought. And then, what if ours was someone else’s return??? Ew.

I was so excited to “achieve the healthiest sleep yet” (according to their site) that any fears of a used mattress were soon allayed by my desire to go to bed and stay there for at least 29 days straight. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited we were and how we fully expected to fall in love with our Intellibed.

Except we didn’t. 🙁

“I need extra support, great pressure relief with zero partner disturbance.” That’s the description of the Intellibed 30 Deluxe.

I could feel David’s movements even more on the Intellibed than I could on our old bed. To us, the bed felt bouncy and provided none of the “zero partner disturbance” we were hoping for. Also, my hips and sacrum were still going numb. There was no change at all in my pressure points from the old bed to the Intellibed.

At the three-day mark, Denise from customer service called, as promised. I’m still impressed that a company calls to check on you.

I gave her an honest review of our experiences, but told her that we really wanted to love our bed, so we were still willing to go through the “adjustment period” even though the first three days had not been stellar. She assured me that it took some getting used to because the Intellibed is so different than typical inner-spring mattresses and definitely different from memory foam. I hung up feeling sure we only needed a few more days to acclimate to our Intellibed.

At one week,  The Hubs was crawling into bed, and he actually said, “I hate this bed. Call them tomorrow and tell them we need to send it back.” This was a big deal coming from my non-complaining husband. He wasn’t adjusting to the bed at all, and was still complaining of back pain and stiffness daily. He even said it felt like he was sleeping in a dip. I couldn’t believe that was possible after a mere seven days and a mattress that claimed to never have a mountain in the middle and valleys on the sides, so I told David I needed to see if he was crazy. Sure enough, there was a noticeable downhill slope when I rolled to his side of the bed and a valley once I got there.

The Hubs is NOT a big guy — he weighs about 20 pounds more than me, and I’m not a big girl. Something was definitely off with this bed.

I called Denise the very next morning, and she was so kind to me. She apologized for our troubles and said that the goal of their company is to make sure their customers are getting the best sleep possible, and if that wasn’t with Intellibed, it was ok. She said she took very detailed notes of our conversation, and explained that they can continue to improve their product by listening to negative feedback. Over and over, she told me how sorry she was that we weren’t sleeping well or loving our bed. Then, she began to make arrangements with the third-party delivery company to pick our bed up as soon as possible.

And as soon as I hung up with Denise, I called Essentia to order our original first choice: the Classic8 organic memory foam bed.

The Return and Refund

Because we were within our 60-day trial period, and because we used the mattress protector, we were able to send the bed back, no questions asked. It took over a week for the delivery company to pick up the bed, which I was not impressed with — but that’s not Intellibed’s fault.

Since the delivery company didn’t leave the original box like they were supposed to, I took photos and video of our Intellibed so that I could prove the bed was in brand-new condition, just in case something happened to it in-transit. Denise and I kept in touch during the entire return process, which took longer than it should have, in my opinion — again, not Intellibed’s fault. The unfortunate thing about all of this is that Intellibed wouldn’t issue a refund until the mattress was back in their position and inspected.

I was very concerned about this. What if a hole gets ripped in it on the truck? What if the delivery men smoke and the bed smells when it arrives? I’m going to get blamed and not get our money back! 

Again, just my opinion, but I think that a refund should be issued as soon as the delivery company confirms pick-up. At that point, what happens to the bed is outside the customer’s control. This is why I took photos of the bed prior to pick-up, and then took video of the delivery guys removing the bed from my house and loading it onto the truck. (Paranoid much?! LOL)

Finally, the Intellibed made it back to the warehouse, was inspected, and we were issued a full refund. In fact, Denise left me a voicemail confirming the refund, and said, “Hopefully you’ll sleep a lot better tonight knowing this is over with!” So even when she didn’t have to care about our sleep anymore, she still did. Our Essentia bed was delivered the day after the Intellibed was picked up, so it all worked out!

Final Thoughts

We just couldn’t justify paying over $3,000 for a mattress that wasn’t giving us any relief from the woes of our former bed. For that much money, I have to absolutely love something and never want to live without it. That didn’t happen with the Intellibed. We truly expected to LOVE it, but we didn’t.

According to Intellibed, The Hubs and I are among the 2.4% of customers who don’t like their beds. If you ask me, that’s an impressively low rate of return.

I don’t feel like Mommypotamus or Empowered Sustenance let me down in their reviews which ultimately tipped the scales and convinced me to buy an Intellibed. The Intellibed lived up to the non-toxic expectations we had: zero “new” smell and neither of us had the typical symptoms of off-gas exposure, such as allergies or rashes.

Although the Intellibed didn’t work for us, what has impressed me most about Intellibed is their customer service. I felt like each person I spoke to genuinely cared about the quality of my sleep. No one tried to talk us into keeping the bed. Throughout my two-month experience with Intellibed, I spoke to Josh the salesman, Denise the customer service rep, Al the manager, and a warehouse guy. (Sorry I don’t remember your name Warehouse Guy!) All of them were super nice and, although surprised by our dislike of the bed, none of them were ever disrespectful or defensive about it. I appreciate that in a company.

I believe Intellibed makes a good bed — that just isn’t for everyone. We had been sleeping on a memory foam topper for six years prior to buying our Intellibed. The mattress we ultimately ended up with is organic memory foam. I think we’re just memory foam people. And honestly, we never would have known that if we hadn’t tried something different; so I’m grateful to Intellibed for one thing: even though we didn’t end up with their bed, they cared enough about our sleep to allow us to try it with no strings attached. In a way, I guess they did help us achieve the healthiest sleep possible because we ARE in love with our Essentia bed!

*This review is based solely on our personal experience of Intellibed and the Intellibed 30 Deluxe. I did not receive any compensation, monetary or otherwise, for my review of this product. At this time, all products reviewed are purchased by me. If I ever review a product that I did not buy, I will disclose that information.