The menopause bedroom: two duvets, eighteen degrees, and the mattress

Around thirteen million women in the UK are perimenopausal or postmenopausal, and disturbed sleep is one of the most common things they report: waking hot, waking often, waking at 3 am and staying awake. A bedroom cannot fix hormones. It can stop making things worse, and it can get you back to sleep faster when you wake. This is the set-up we would recommend to a friend.

The room

Temperature. Sixteen to eighteen degrees. That is cooler than most bedrooms are kept. Turn the radiator valve down or off, open the window a crack even in winter, and close blackout blinds during the day in summer so the room does not bank heat.

Air. A fan on low, pointed at the wall or the ceiling so the air moves without blowing on you. In summer, a fan pulling air in from an open window at night and the window shut by day.

Light. Blackout blinds, and no screens in the last hour. Waking at 3 am is bad enough without a phone glow making it permanent.

Water. A glass by the bed, and a small towel. Nobody tells you about the towel.

The bed

Two single duvets on a double or king bed. This is the single most useful change for a couple where one runs hot. Each side gets its own tog, and throwing yours off does not uncover them. Hotels in Scandinavia have done it for a century.

Duvet tog. 4.5 in summer, 7.5 in winter, or a 4.5 all year with a blanket on top for the cold weeks. Natural fillings breathe.

Sheets. Cotton percale, linen or Tencel. Not polycotton, not brushed cotton. A spare set on the chair for the nights you need to change them at 4 am.

Pillow. Not memory foam. Down, wool, latex, or a Tencel-covered pillow.

Protector. Breathable, not plastic-backed. If you need waterproofing, a Tencel-faced one with a breathable membrane.

Nightwear. Cotton or linen, loose, or nothing.

The mattress

Here is what a mattress can and cannot do, plainly.

It cannot stop a hot flush or a night sweat. Nothing you sleep on can, and we will not say otherwise.

It can stop being part of the problem. Memory foam on top holds heat and gives it back; a solid foam mattress has no air moving through it. A mattress with latex, wool or springs on top, a vented border and a thin breathable cover stays close to room temperature and dries fast, so when the flush passes you are not lying on a warm, damp patch. That is the difference between falling back to sleep in five minutes and being awake for an hour.

It can make turning over easier. You will be moving more. Latex pushes back; memory foam has to be climbed out of.

If your mattress is memory foam on top, the cheapest fix is a latex or wool topper; the real fix, when the time comes, is a mattress built for it. Our guide to the best mattress for hot flushes goes through the spec.

The partner

Someone who sleeps cold next to someone who sleeps hot is a solvable problem, and the solutions are cheap in this order: separate duvets, a bigger bed (a king or super king gives each of you your own climate), a mattress that does not transfer heat or movement across, and, for some couples for a while, separate rooms without shame.

What is not on this list

Cooling gel pads, "cooling" microfibre toppers, memory foam with a blue cover, and anything that promises to regulate your temperature. See our guide to cooling toppers for which ones actually work.

How we built ours

The Hot Flush is named for this, not to promise anything, but because nobody had built a mattress and been honest about what it is for. No memory foam on top. Talalay latex, graphite foam, an air-channel layer, a vented spring border, an unquilted Tencel cover with a phase-change finish.

The short version

• Room at 16 to 18, air moving, dark.
• Two single duvets. Percale, linen or Tencel sheets. No memory foam pillow. Breathable protector.
• The mattress: latex or fibre on top, springs underneath, thin cover. It will not stop a flush; it will not add to it.
• If it is new, heavy or worrying, see a doctor. This is about the bed.