I’ve gone to great lengths in the past to make sure our guests have a good night’s sleep when they come to stay.

We’re lucky that the basics are already covered. Our guest rooms are on the back of the house so there’s very little traffic noise; visitors won’t be woken by lorries rumbling by in the wee small hours.

We also have shutters on the windows; so the rooms are darker than dark.

In fact — as my mum once discovered — it’s sometimes a little too dark. She woke up in the middle of the night once and was convinced she’d gone blind.

Thankfully she hadn’t.

It was just pitch black and she got a little disorientated.

Anyway. Back to the positives.

There’s always fresh bedlinen and clean towels.

And a couple of year’s ago I set to, making a care pack for overnight guests. A basket full of everything a guest could possibly need whilst they were staying with us.

But for all of those things, ultimately, the main thing that aides a comfortable night’s sleep is a good mattress.

And if the mattress is akin to sleeping on porridge — or a bed of nails — no amount of added extras are going to make you sleep like a proverbial baby.

So when the lovely folk at Sleepbear got in touch to ask if we’d like to test out one of their mattresses, we jumped at the chance.

We’d not long had a new mattress for our own bed but the mattress in one of our guest-rooms was pretty ancient and was long overdue an upgrade.

Our Sleepbear mattress review

So what did we think of the Sleepbear mattress?

Well. First comments are that it’s much easier to position than a regular, tufted mattress.

Our guest room is at the very top of the house and whilst the Sleepbear mattress isn’t as compact as the mattress on our own bed, it comes in a box and is still a lot easier to manoeuvre into place than a traditional style mattress.

It was pretty heavy but — given the guest-room bed is a king-size — that’s not wholly surprising.

We slept in the guest-room bed for a month ourselves, so that I could give a proper and full Sleepbear mattress review.

And, in short, we loved it.

The Sleepbear has the impressive ability to be both soft and firm at the same time; similar to the one on our own bed. But unlike other memory foam mattresses, that we’ve slept on in the past, it didn’t make us overheat during the night.

This is due to the fact that Sleepbear mattresses are crafted from natural latex.

Latex doesn’t retain heat and is cool to the touch. Plus it’s perforated for additional airflow. So unlike a traditional memory-foam mattress, the Sleepbear ensures that our guests will stay cool in summer and warm in winter.

It’s hypoallergenic too; making it almost impossible for dust mites to take up residence.

One negative to mention.

Similar to our own mattress, the Sleepbear had a chemical ‘rubbery’ kind of smell when we first unboxed it. It lingered for the first month or so.

But this is something that disappeared over time.

Flying the Flag for Great Britain

I love the fact that Sleepbear mattresses are handmade in Britain.

Every part of the process — from sewing the covers, to boxing each Sleepbear mattress — is carried out in an Oxfordshire factory. To the highest level of quality.

Plus Sleepbear is a family-owned business; borne out of it’s founders’ own disappointing experiences of ‘trying to buy a comfortable, supportive, quality mattress at a great price’.

Says James — one of Sleepbear’s co-founders:

‘Buying a mattress in a very public place is time consuming, just a little bit embarrassing and confusing. We wanted to cut out the middleman and make the experience beautifully simple, because we know you are busy.

We want to offer you a super supportive, comfortable and more sustainable luxury mattress direct to your home and give you a money back guarantee, with a 100 night trial, because we are so confident you are going to fall in love with your — sleep on a cloud — Sleepbear mattress’

Air of Confidence

I think the 100 night home trial is the clincher with the Sleepbear mattress.

Being able to test a mattress out at home — for a decent amount of time — instead of a 10 minute fumble in a mattress showroom is brilliant.

And if that wasn’t enough, the Sleepbear team have so much confidence in their product, each mattress also comes with a 10 year guarantee.

But finally — comfort and peace of mind aside —  my very favourite thing about the Sleepbear mattress (in comparison to comparable products on the market today) is this:

Sleepbear partners with Polar Bears International.

If you buy a Sleepbear mattress, you can rest easy in the knowledge that a percentage of the proceeds from the sale will go directly to PBI to help them support the conservation of polar bears.

This is such a hot topic of conversation at the moment isn’t it?

We’re regularly hearing about global warming and melting sea ice. The plight of the polar bears is upsetting to say the least.

It’s so nice to know that we can do our bit, to help the environment, from the comfort of our own beds.

Certainly a thought that will have you sleeping easy, that’s for sure.

PS — My big (man-shaped) boy and I weren’t the only ones who reviewed our Sleepbear mattress! My whole family have slept in the bed (not at the same time, I hasten to add — that would be too weird).

You can see what everyone else thought, in this little film.

We were generously gifted a king-sized Sleepbear mattress for the purposes of this review; all photos, thoughts and words — as ever — are entirely my own.

Pop along to the Sleepbear website for more information.