Natural Wool Bedding: Can It Help A Knackered Parent Sleep?

According to my web stats around 72% of people reading this website are parents. And according to my experience, 100% of those people will be knackered.

As a parent, sleep is the most precious commodity around. I’m not what I’d call sleep deprived now my kids are that little bit older, but I still hanker after a decent night’s kip like a junkie looking for their next hit of crack. It’s my opinion that something happens to your sleep when you have kids; before they arrived I would have slept through the night like a baby (the irony!), now I wake at every single little sound the children make.

Which is why when I moved house last year the bedroom was a big priority. I reckon that if I’m not getting enough sleep I may as well make my bed and the room it’s in the absolute nicest place to be. I now have a gorgeous big bed, a lovely luxurious mattress, a cosy rug and massive pillows to read on… it’s a sanctuary.

Or so I thought!

Earlier on this month the lovely people at woolroom got in touch to ask if I’d ever considered natural wool bedding. Eyeing up my old faithful feather and down duvet and memory foam pillows I nearly binned the email, thinking I had enough bedding as it was.

But then I had a read through their website: natural wool bedding has so many more benefits than I realised. There’s its ability to regulate your nighttime temperature, the fact it’s 100% hypoallergenic and the ability to wash all wool bed products in the machine. Not to sound massively middle-aged or anything but I’m prone to the odd night sweat at various times of the month, so I was keen to see if changing my bedding could help.

To help in my quest for a better nights sleep woolroom sent me a duvet, a mattress topper and two pillows, all natural wool bedding made only with wool and 100% cotton. I was interested to see how they’d compare to my previous microfibre mattress protector, synthetic-encased down duvet and memory foam pillows.

The mattress topper was incredibly soft and felt so much more luxurious than my old synthetic one. It snapped on with large elastic straps and has stayed put ever since. The duvet was lightweight and the quilting made it feel very high quality, but the biggest surprise of all were the pillows which are completely adjustable. You can make your night’s sleep softer or harder by adding or removing wool: genius! 

I made up my bed and got ready to test the items’ sleepworthiness.

The first night I found the mattress topper a little softer than I was used to, deducing that my mattress is actually pretty hard. But by the second night I’d become accustomed to the feeling, enjoying cuddling into the gorgeous surface at the end of the day. It makes going to bed and reading a book seem like a much bigger treat than it did before and I am sold forever on a more snuggly mattress.

The duvet – I picked medium weight at 8-12 tog – felt light but is just as cosy as my old heavy duck down one. It sits beautifully on my bed and is very comfortable to sleep under as it’s not as heavy or cumbersome as I’m used to.

The pillows are just brilliant: in a nutshell they’re a pleasure to sleep on.

But the big litmus test took a few weeks to assess… have I noticed a difference in the quality of my sleep?

It’s a big yes from me. I get a lot less hot and bothered at night sleeping under natural wool, an effect I’m feeling much more than I would have expected. Having gone through some extremes of weather in the last few weeks (god bless the British summer) I can happily say that I’ve been warm on the cold nights and comfortable on the warm ones. And I don’t know if this is in direct relation to my new bedding, but the children have been sneaking in to my bed a lot more than they used to.

Speaking of whom, my two must have really wanted to put woolroom to the test as we suffered spillages on both the mattress protector AND duvet three days after they arrived. Thanks, kids. What an excellent way to see if both really are washable.

As my bed is king-sized I couldn’t fit either the mattress protector or duvet in my 12kg washing machine (I’d estimate a single or double would be fine), but as the spillage was light I decided to do a quick handwash in the bath instead.

Both topper and duvet came up beautifully and dried on the line within a couple of hours: much less hassle than washing a feather and down duvet cover, for sure. Neither product was compromised and you’d never know either had been washed. Magic!

In a nutshell, the little sleep I get has definitely improved in quality thanks to making these new changes. I’m going to bed that little bit earlier to enjoy the pleasure of a snuggle on my new mattress topper, and my nighttime temperature is much more pleasant thanks to the duvet and pillows.

If you’re a troubled sleeper – or a parent – I’d say it’s definitely worth giving woolroom a whirl. They’ve got a brilliant summer sale on at the moment; I’m thinking about going for extra snuggleness this winter with their fleece mattress cover. Lovely.

Huge thanks to woolroom for working with MTT.