Hi - I just got a sleeper sofa from Room & Board that comes with a “high resiliency” foam. The mattress is a tri-fold and is 4"-5" thick. It’s way too firm and bouncy as-is. They offer a Serene foam mattress instead, and have offered to switch it out for me. I wouldn’t be able to try it in stores. What questions should I ask to understand firmness or quality? The primary users of the sleeper sofa are my parents who have a firm tempurpedic today. The sleeper sofa feels okay with a mattress topper on it, but I just wonder if the Serene foam would be better long term. I’m just leery if the Serene is soft that on a 5" mattress you’d bottom out. Could be totally unfounded concern, but it’s an expensive sleeper sofa and I’d like to make a good long term decision. Any help is appreciated!
Hi bnfrost.
Welcome to our Mattress Forum. 
If you’re definitely dissatisfied with the current foam and the Serene foam is all they can offer, it sounds like you might just be stuck with that option. That said, it’s easier to soften a too firm mattress with the right topper, but nearly impossible to firm-up a foam that’s too soft. That is something to keep in mind!
How frequently would your parents be sleeping on the mattress? It’s hard for me to make any sort of meaningful commentary in terms of durability without knowing the foam density (you can read more about that in our Durability Guidelines.)
NikkiTMU
Hi - thanks so much for the reply! My parents would sleep on it 2-3 times per year for 5-10 nights. My mom is < 110lbs and my dad is 170lbs. I’m told the Serene foam is 2.5lbs. Is there anything I could ask to assess firmness? Primary concern is making sure they don’t bottom out knowing it’s a shallow sleeper sofa profile mattress. The current foam almost feels like a gymnastics pad mat (exaggerating a little). Good to know I can’t really increase firmness if it goes softer. Was just hoping they might be able to use it without a topper. Thanks again!
Hi bnfrost.
2.5 lbs is within what we’d recommend in terms of durability, so that is positive. As for firmness, we’d need to know the IFD to determine how soft or firm the foam is.
NikkiTMU
The room and board “Day and Night” is a private label version of the American Leather sleeper.
American Leather… I would say “intentionally” manufacture these with a… lets say… “non ideal” foam for their private label customers.
That may be conspiracy theorizing, but I have heard that POV from industry insiders, including high end retailers and manufacturers.
a 2nd point to remember is that these are fundamentally different from most other types of sleepers.
they are:
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actually “futons” since the mattress is fully segmented (not a continuous, unbroken, sheet/slab of foam)
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permanently fixed (aka “tight”) to a plywood or comparable hard continuous flat sheet material.
The alternative, the widely known and hated bi-fold sleeper that has been around in largely the same design for almost 100 years allows more flexibility and upgradeability, since you can remove the mattress, replace it, etc.
The downside is that this design is limited to at most around ~75" and those are rather rare. The standard is 72" (IIRC, referred to as a “short queen”)
The best compromise I can think of is a product that is not super common, but can be purchased if you look for the right retailer.
The Cozy Sleeper Mattress
Its a specialized version of the bi-fold sleeper designed for commercial/contract use, especially higher end hotels. Instead of the standard 5" mattress maximum thickness, its an 8~9" thick mattress
It uses a spring mattress that is bolted to the metal folding mechanism, which is the crude but effective way it achieves its unique value add (the ~2x thick mattress). technically I think it has some special spring geometry at the fold, but I have never cut one open to verify.
Similar to the American Leather, A well built sofa with a good fabric, let alone a leather, manufactured with this sleeper mechanism is enormously heavy… about as heavy as 36" thick of solid latex. Not “refrigerator heavy”. More like “2 refrigerators”.