Smittybilt XL tent won’t close very well with 2” topper

[Captmarkhd]

Hey guys, I just bought a Smittybilt XL tent and following all of the threads advice I went ahead and just installed a 2” memory foam topper on the original mattress. All of the threads that I have found say that even with the topper, sleeping bags and pillows the RTT will still fold up just fine!!! I don’t even have the pillows in it yet, just the topper and two sleeping bags and I had a heck of a time yesterday closing it, in fact some of the straps aren’t even long enough now to attach. I was able to get the cover on pretty good but it’s not grabbing all of the Velcro. What am I doing wrong?
I didn’t do anything special when I folded it up, I layed out the sleeping bags and the topper flat out and just folded the tent.
Should I have “pre” folded the topper and bags first? Ugh, it took me an hour to get it buttoned up. Thanks in advance!

 

[NatersXJ6]

Don’t know about the particular model, but yes, you need to pre fold and arrange everything on the permanent side of a soft shell tent so that there is room to fold, keep it all neat, and stuff the fabric. I arrange everything in a neat rectangle leaving about 9” on the sides and “front”, I’m 90% sure my tent couldn’t hold a 2” topper plus pillows and bags. If I swap my normal blankets for heavy bags, I usually end up a bit tough to close. If you laid everything lengthwise, it probably slumped as you folded and balled up at the end. Practice 5-10 times and you will do it as second nature.

 

[Captmarkhd]

Thank you very much for replying! I’m sure that part of my problem was everything just kind of landed in a big lump