About Fitted Sheets

Fitted sheets also referred to a bottom sheets and serve as a barrier to protect you from a mattress. Since a mattress cannot be washed, a fitted sheet provides a clean and comfortable surface to sleep on. If you don't like the idea of waking up sleeping directly on the mattress, then you will want to use fitted sheets.

Before the invention of fitted sheets, flat sheets were folded around the mattress using techniques such as hospital corners to keep the sheet snug to the bed. These sheets rarely stayed put. In 1959, an African American woman by the name of Bertha Berman patented a design for fitted sheets that had corners sewn in a way that would fit the sheet to the mattress. These sheets were still less than perfect as they still managed to pop off the bed. These sheets needed elastic garters and other gadgets to keep the sheet on the bed. Finally in 1990, Gisele Jubinville created a fitted sheet deep corner pockets that grab a mattress and stay put. She sold the patent in 1993 for $1 million.

Fitted sheets wrap around the mattress creating a clean and cleanable surface for sleeping. Fitted sheets can be selected based on the materials that you most prefer providing for a comfortable night's sleep. In addition to fitted bottom sheets that protect the sleeper from lying directly on the mattress, there are also fitted top sheets that you can cover themselves with. The bottom two corners are fitted to the mattress so the sleeper cannot kick them loose.

There are several different types of fitted sheets. They come in different materials such as cotton, linen, flannel, t-shirt fabric and satin. They also some in different styles to fit different types of mattresses. You can find a standard fitted sheet for regular depth mattresses and deluxe fitted sheets with deep pockets for extra thick mattresses. You will also find fitted sheets for cribs and twinsize beds as well as for full, queen, king and California King size beds. You can even purchase fitted sheets for specialty round sheets what will be sold along with the round bed.

Fitted sheets provide not only comfort but also cleanliness. Since people continually shed skin cells, sweat and may have dust or dirt on their bodies, the bed will over time become dirty and accumulate germs and bed mites, or worse. As sheets can be washed regularly, they protect the mattress from accumulating this dirt. They also protect people from any dirt or germs on the mattress.

Because of the high risk of SIDS and babies smothering in their sleep, parents should be extra careful with fitted sheets. They need to ensure that the fitted sheet fits the bed snugly as if it pops off, it can wrap around and endanger the life of the child.

While fitted sheets solve the problem of the sheet continually slipping of the mattress, folding fitted sheets pose a different problem. Folding fitted sheets are a huge challenge. The key to folding the fitted sheet is to ignore the outside edges of the sheet and to use the corners of the pockets as the edges, folding the excess material out of the way. Check the Resources section of this article for guides that will help you fold a fitted sheet.