An airbed I’ll try this year – my first impressions about the Sound Asleep Dream Series
I entertain a lot – garden movie nights, family barbecues, spontaneous mini parties…you name it, I do it. Each summer.
A lot of it involves weekend sleepovers. So, typically, I go to through at least one air mattress per season.
Buying a new air bed every year might seem like a lot but, trust me, when you have kids using it, you can’t expect much more than that. Even the inflatables that did last through the summers would spring an air leak come next season.
The last point probably has something to do with the fact that they’re just packed away during the winter – I’m not sure; it’s just what I’ve seen.
How I chose the SoundAsleep Dream Series for this year
Every year, I go through a similar process, I spend a few hours reading reviews and researching. It does get a bit confusing because I try to find the sites reviewing the beds by actually testing them.
This time around I stumbled upon thesleepstudies.com and based my decision on their tests and review of the SoundAsleep Dream Series.
My mind was already have made because I looked at this air mattress even last year and was pretty close to buying it, but my brands nostalgia took over at the last minute and I chose an airbed from one of the or the older companies. I’ll refrain from mentioning the brand because I don’t have any praise for it.
I believe it was mid-July when leaks started and, for the rest of the summer, I was patching it every few weeks. And I don’t think that I did anything wrong. First of all, that was not my first airbed and, secondly, I always closely follow this patching guide on WikiHow.
My initial impressions
First of all, it was refreshing to see some color, because all my previous inflatables were grays and beiges – it kind of got boring.
I inflated of the Dream Series on arrival and placed a few heavy items on it to check whether it will lose any air. This was about 5 weeks ago.
I’m pleased to say that I only turned the pump on once every 4- 5 days to inflate it back to the original firmness. So, as far as I could tell, there were no leaks developing and the little air that it was losing is only natural with these things.
They tend to stretch for a while until they reach their final shape and set in. Over the years I pretty much learned how to tell the difference between that kind of air loss and an actual leak.
So far so good.
The first real challenge
I had my cousin’s family over for a weekend sleepover two weeks ago. In my eyes, that was the first serious test for the airbed. If it can withstand kids jumping up and down on it, it’s a huge plus.
It faired well against the “abuse.” The kids loved it, which is not surprising really; it’s kind of a small bounce castle for them.
Even when it did get deflated, it was only a matter of turning the pump for 15- 20 seconds to top it off. No pinholes or tears.
Sleeping on it – to early to tell
The decision process that I talked about above came down to this air mattress and two others that were significantly more expensive because they came with those modern pumps that work through the night.
I didn’t want to spend more
I went with the Dream Series because it will likely be used outdoors (in the garden at least). So, paying more for those “never-flat” pumps didn’t much sense because they have to be plugged in to work.
As I said, those typically cost much more and, if you ask me, only make sense if you’re looking for a bed for your guest room. I won’t get into the details of what these pumps do – if you want, you can read more about them here.
Now, my cousin’s kids who were sleeping on the bed weigh between 250 and 300 pounds between the four of them. The instruction manual that came with it says that the maximum capacity is 500 pounds for the Queen-size, so there is really no way for me to tell how it will “respond” to adults.
Personally, I only took 2 naps on it to see how it feels and it was fairly comfortable. Just as important, it held onto the fitted sheets (which is a biggie for me because I’ve seen sheets slide and move way too often with air mattresses I owned the over the previous years).
Packing it down
Last year I had an air mattress that weighted about 50% more (over 30 lbs). I got it because it was advertised to be more durable.
I ended up regretting the decision because we did a lot of camping and there’s simply no way to pack that thing down and carry it around.
This one is much easier to handle and store. The carry bag that comes with is nothing to write home about but it does the job.
I found a secondary use for the bag – I put sneakers in it when I want to wash them in a machine. I used to wash sneakers simply by throwing them in the machine and then listening to what sounded like, “OK, I’ll probably need a new machine after this”.
But, back to the topic at hand…
I’ll be back with updates
I decided to write this review of the Dream Series right after getting it because I plan to report back at least once or twice.
I’ll refrain from praising it’s too much because the summer and the real challenges are still ahead. Based on the reviews I’ve seen, it should hold its own and last at least through the summer. Fingers crossed that it does because, the way I’m using it pretty much voids the warranty within a few weeks.
At this point, I’m glad I didn’t dig deeper into my wallet, succumb to my brand nostalgia and pay for labels.
As I said, so far so good.
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