What Happened To Waterbeds?

Of course, the great selling point was sex. One ad said the waterbed is very good for two things; one of them is sleeping. Another ad claimed that she’ll admire you for your car, respect you for your position, and love you for your waterbed.

But then waterbeds were nothing new. The Persians had them in 3600 BC when they filled goatskin bags with water. During the 1800s medical doctors used something similar for patients with bedsores and/or TB. They were reinvented during the late 60s and became popular during the 70s. During the late 80s, nearly one in four mattresses sold were water bed mattresses, and in the 90s they quietly went out of fashion leaving thousands of water mattresses in warehouses. Most dealers will tell you that it is years since they last sold one.

By the 80s, at the height of its popularity, waterbeds were available in a variety of styles, from four-post Colonials to Victorian beds with carved headboards to simple, sturdy box frames. Allergy sufferers liked having a dust-free mattress, while back pain sufferers were drawn to the beds’ free-floating quality.


So what happened? How did our enthusiasm for sleeping on liters of pure H2O go down the drain so quickly?

These beds were probably just too cumbersome. Apart from the constant possibility of a flooded bedroom, they were prohibitively heavy; not just the mattress but also the supporting framework. It was a problem filling or draining the mattress.

During the early 90s when I decided to buy a new bed, a salesman tried very hard to sell a waterbed to me but he had to settle for the sale of a normal bed. I was not going to risk a woman getting seasick on my bed.