OK,so we reluctantly made the transition from our lovely, spacious poly-cotton tent to our new caravan.
Loved it! But just one thing dampened our first trip.
Sore backs!
We are converting the front seats into a double bed. It very firm, but really comfortable, so we were surprised to both have bad backs on an increasing scale over the 4 nights that we were away.
I have early onset arthritis, so find things like this really difficult to shake off.
Just wondering if anyone else has suffered the same and got any suggestions to help avoid it?
We're thinking of mattress toppers but are there any effective light weight ones that would be good for caravaning?
Not something we have suffered with in the caravan, but have you thought about a memory foam topper?
We have one on our bed and I have found it very good.
Made up caravan beds are never that comfortable, how can they be? bits of foam pushed together, you would not sleep like that at home would you? A topper can improve things. Needs to be at least 3inch so bed needs to be left made up. Or get rid of cushions & you should have room for at least a small double matrress if not a double mattress & you will get as good a sleep as your own bed. My experience anyway.
I would echo Brians comments re: which way do you have the cushions facing and do you turn them over?
The owners book will show you the preferred way of arranging the cushions, but after a little trial and error you will find an arrangement that possible suits your posture better.
I have back problems and find that placing a quilt on top of the cushions and sleeping on that helps a great deal. In fact, the double quilt acts as a 'sleeping bag' insofar as you lay on one part of it and wrap the other over you. Very cosy and snug but easy to get out of for any 'middle of the night' visits!
If the seat cushions have knee rolls put them at the top and bottom against the walls.
Having teenage daughters with us most of the time its not worth making the double bed up so we sleep separate on each seat and find it very comfortable and don't disturb each other.
Until the dog wants to share !!
We turn the cushions over and then put a 3" thick memory foam topper on - The difference is amazing. We roll the topper up, secure with bungie chords and store in the shower.
We used a Dunelm topper on ours when we had a "made up" bed in our last van and found it really made a difference. We have just changed to a van with an island bed and thought we wouldn't need the topper. But the mattress is so firm that we still use it.