How to Keep Warm on an Air Mattress (8 Tips)
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Air mattresses cool quicker than regular beds, so if the weather is cold, you may struggle to keep warm and comfortable. This is especially true for campers in colder climates. Sleeping will be a problem if you can’t warm yourself up. There are some ways, however, on how to keep warm on an air mattress.
How can I keep warm on an air mattress? There are many ways to keep warm on an air mattress. You can use a heating pad, space blanket, or wool blanket to help trap the heat. You could also bundle up in a heavy-duty sleeping bag or wear more layers.
Below, we’re going to list down some of the techniques you can use to stay warm on your air mattress. These are all practical methods that you can use and benefit from. Take a look at them below:
1. Use a Heating Pad
There is some concern over using a heating pad with your air mattress because some people believe that the heating pad will permanently damage the foam. But is this true, or is it just a myth?
In a general sense, it’s relatively safe to put a heating pad on an air mattress. However, it would help if you remembered that the foam would react to the heat, though it won’t really destroy the foam. It will probably just make the foam weaker and less efficient than it’s supposed to be. That’s why we recommend that you don’t put the heating pad directly on the foam.
Place the heating pad on the top of your body instead of underneath it. The advantage here is that the heating pad (view on Amazon) will not come into direct contact with the mattress. The foam will be pretty safe. At the same time, you’ll get enough heat that you need to keep yourself warm during the cold nights. Heating pads are ubiquitous and relatively inexpensive.
2. Use a Space/Emergency Blanket Under the Air Mattress
Another thing that you can do is put a space or emergency blanket under the air mattress. This method is an especially useful tip for campers who plan to sleep in the outdoors. To give you an idea, a space blanket is a blanket that is made of heat-reflective plastic.
The advantage of having this kind of blanket under your air mattress is that it can reflect heat back to you. This way, you’ll still have heat even though the air mattress has already cooled down since the heat transports back to the air mattress anyway.
If you haven’t bought a space or emergency blanket before, then we recommend that you try out a space blanket from Swiss Safe. They create some of the best and most effective emergency thermal blankets (view on Amazon) that you can find in the market. These are sure to work when you’re looking for a heating method.
3. Place a Wool Blanket Under the Mattress
Aside from placing an emergency or space blanket under the mattress, you may also opt to place a wool blanket underneath as well. We absolutely recommend this method for campers since a 100% wool material is the warmest of all-natural materials. Also, the fibers in wool are quite compact, so they can trap heat inside, which can reflect back to you.
Due to this, you’ll always feel really warm when you wear a wool jacket. The same thing applies to a wool blanket (view on Amazon). The wool blanket works pretty much like an emergency or space blanket but tends to offer more warmth. That’s why we believe that this is an ideal method for outdoors.
Of course, wool blankets trap a lot of heat in its fibers, so expect to stay extremely warm when using it. Campers usually use this in harsh conditions or outdoors during times near winter.
4. Put Two Comforters Between You and the Mattress
So far, all of the methods that we’ve mentioned require you to buy something. But what if you’re bothered by the cold in the middle of the night and can’t go out to the store to buy a wool blanket or a heating pad? Or maybe you’re already in the woods without a space blanket?
For situations like these, you can go old school and put either two comforters or two blankets between you and the mattress. While these won’t work as well as the previously mentioned methods, they do work in times when you don’t have access to that many pieces of equipment.
5. Buy a Self-Inflating Thermal Rest
A self-inflating thermal rest (view on Amazon) is another piece of equipment that you can prepare should you want to go camping. This product is known as a self-inflating thermal rest and is pretty much like a big sleeping pad that has high insulation.
You can either put this on your already existing mattress or put it in your sleeping bag. It may feel a little bit uncomfortable at first, but it’s pretty easy to get used to. If you’re camping, you shouldn’t have that much trouble adjusting since you’re roughing it in.
6. Use Tatami Mats
A tatami mat may sound a bit out-of-the-blue, but tatami mats are also pretty wonderful insulators. You can buy one of those 3-inch high-density tatami mats and use them with your air mattress – like what you can do with a futon.
They’re rather comfortable and are somewhere in between being soft and being firm. These days, tatami mats are pretty standard around Japanese stores, so if there is one around your area, then you can buy this product. You can even search for it online as a lot of places sell tatami mats.
7. Combine Anti-Fatigue Mats with a Memory Foam Mattress Topper
This is one of the most affordable solutions to keeping warm on an air mattress. All you need to do is buy 2 anti-fatigue mats that have about half-inch density and a 2-inch memory foam mattress topper.
Put the anti-fatigue mats on the mattress then top them off with the mattress topper. This will give you an incredibly comfortable bed to sleep on while giving you the right amount of heat to stay warm outdoors. It does take quite a bit of time to set up, but it’s really worth it during the cold nights, especially if you’re a camper that’s on budget.
8. Use a Sleeping Bag
For the benefit of those who go camping, we recommend that you bring a sleeping bag just in case. Even if you already bring an air mattress, it might get too cold in the night that you won’t be able to sleep properly. So if it does come down to that situation, you can always just pull out your sleeping bag and sleep there instead.
Of course, this is pretty much a worst-case scenario scene that you should prepare for if nothing works or you didn’t have the time to buy the necessary equipment for your trip. This also works indoors if you’re stuck in the house during cold weather without a working heater.
All you need to do is pull up your sleeping bag (view on Amazon), and you’ll be pretty comfortable. Most sleeping bags are made of really thick material anyway, so insulation isn’t going to be that much of a problem.
Some Final Words – How to Keep Warm on an Air Mattress
Air mattresses are designed to cool so that you won’t have to sweat at night sleeping on the warm or the hot side of the bed. However, air mattresses work so much better in hot weather than in cold weather. If you happen to go out camping during the summer, this type of bed can be beneficial to you.
However, some troubles may arise if the wind is cold and winter is nearing. Instead of avoiding the warm side, you’ll now be looking for the warm side of the bed. Since air mattresses are designed to provide you with cooler nights of sleep, you’ll have a hard time finding the warm side.
That’s why you need to take note of a few tricks if ever you decide to buy yourself an air mattress. These tricks are used not only by homeowners during cold weather, but they are also trusted by campers who are used to roughing it in. That said, you can be very sure that one of these methods will surely work for you. All you have to do is choose which one you want to try and go for it.
And also, don’t forget to prepare all the necessary warming items before you go on your camping trip. You don’t want to go into the woods being all vulnerable to the bitter cold.
