Have you ever seen your cat or dog lying peacefully in its fluffy bed and thought: I’d like to go in there too? Me too. I’ve even laid my head in a bed like that a few times, but it wasn’t quite the same.
Now I finally know what it feels like to snuggle up in an animal bed. For a few weeks now I’ve been sleeping, reading, lounging and snacking in the very expensive Plufl, a human-sized dog bed.
Some people have busy schedules that keep them constantly on their toes. That’s not me. I’m a lazy person. My hobbies are Parenthood and TikTok on a cozy couch with a blanket and a cat or three on my lap. The Plufl provides that comfort a hundredfold and cradles me in just the right way. The first time I sat in it, I fell asleep immediately.
The Plufl comes in a very large box, but it’s fairly lightweight. Once you’ve unpacked it, you’ll want to let the base sit for a while before assembling the whole thing. Much like a regular foam mattress, it needs time to expand and regain its shape after it’s been packaged and shipped. The brand recommends waiting 24 hours, but says people often get away with less time, and the latter was the case for me. I let it sit for a little less than a full workday, and it was fine.
Once it’s ready, the two padding pieces need to be fed through the tunnels in the cover. I left them as is, but you can take some of the filling out if you want. It comes with a bag to store the extra filling in case you want to put it back.
The pads give it good depth, and it’s comfortable enough to support your head without the need for a separate pillow. I wish one end was stiffer or had back support. It’s extremely easy to lay down in, but not so easy to sit up and recline. I used a stiff pillow like the Quiet Mind weighted pillow to prop myself up, but you shouldn’t need to add an expensive pillow to an already expensive bed. In the meantime, a cheap bed rest pillow would probably help.
Of course, for it to fit an adult, it has to be big. It’s just over 5.5 feet long (68 inches) and 2.7 feet wide (33 inches). I’m 5’7″ and my husband is 5’11”, so neither of us could stretch out straight in the cushions, but I was comfortable tucking my legs in like I normally sleep, or letting them hang over the edge when I felt like stretching.
There are handles on either end for moving, and there’s a Velcro strap inside the box so you can fold it in half and buckle the handles together. That’s handy if you need to move it from, say, the middle of your living room, but it’s always going to be a very large piece of furniture.
“The product is hand-sewn and not mass-produced, unlike some knockoffs,” a company spokesperson told me in an email. “So it takes a lot of time and labor to make each individual Plufl.” That makes sense, and there are orthopedic dog beds—for real dogs—that cost between $100 and $300. That doesn’t exactly make the price cheaper on your wallet, but I value my comfort more than my paycheck. (Who saves anything in 2023? Climate change is literally burning up the atmosphere anyway, right?) This product isn’t a necessity, but it’s a luxury that I’ve enjoyed immensely. If you have the money and like to lounge around like I do, you’ll probably love this bed.
Grede may know a thing or two about clothing—she launched the wildly successful Good American with Khloe Kardashian—but she clearly doesn’t understand the anxious and tired among us. The answer to Grede’s question is me. This product was made for me. By the way, Mark Cuban and Lori Greiner, who invested in another of my favorite sleep devices, Hug Sleep, understand this too. Sometimes you just want to feel safe and wrapped up, and this bed is perfect when you don’t have your favorite human to snuggle, cuddle, and hold you.