Infant comfort mattress

A mattress structure to provide a comfortable sleeping surface for an infant or small child made by a method comprising the steps of:

• providing a firm, resilient, compressible base layer having two major surfaces that are substantially flat, with the base layer having an uncompressed height hB between the two major surfaces, and
• providing a soft, resilient compressible polymeric foam cover layer, with the cover layer having a first and a second major surface, with the first major surface being substantially flat and the second major surface being substantially covered with peaks of approximately uniform height, with the peaks having tops, and valleys of approximately uniform depth, with the peaks and the valleys alternating within rows in checkerboard fashion, and with the cover layer having an uncompressed height, hC, with the height hC being the vertical distance between the first major surface and the tops of the peaks of the second major surface, and
• covering one of the two major surfaces of the base layer with the first major surface of the cover layer to form a mattress filling comprising the base layer and the cover layer, with the mattress filling having the peaks of the cover layer exposed, and with the uncompressed height of the mattress filling equal to the sum of hB and hC, and
• providing a mattress ticking that contains and compresses the mattress filling, with the mattress ticking having two major sides and with the two major sides of the mattress ticking separated by a fully extended height, hT, and with the sum of hB and hC exceeding hT by about 5% to about 50%, and
• condensing the mattress filling so that the condensed height of the mattress filling is less than hT, and
• inserting the condensed mattress filling into the ticking and sealing the ticking,
• so that the mattress ticking is in compressive contact with the resilient mattress filling that is contained within the ticking, and with one of the two major sides of the mattress ticking compressively contacting the second of the two major surfaces of the base layer comprising the mattress filling and the second of the two major sides of the mattress ticking compressively contacting the peaks of the cover layer comprising the mattress filling so that the peaks of the cover layer press against the second of the two major sides of the mattress ticking and create a pattern of rises and depressions on the second of the two major sides of the mattress ticking, with the pattern of rises and depressions on the second of the two major sides of the mattress ticking providing the comfortable sleeping surface.