Best Mattresses for Side Sleepers
These innerspring, foam, and adjustable air mattresses offer the best support for side sleepers in CR's tests
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If your go-to position is to sleep on your side, you’re in good company. Surveys and studies consistently suggest that more than half of people are side sleepers, and there are quite a few benefits to side sleeping, too—from helping to reduce snoring and sleep apnea, to easing acid reflux (if you sleep on your left).
But with all your weight distributed onto one side of the body, a good mattress is key to keeping you from waking up sore. The best mattresses for side sleepers give you adequate support while you’re lying on your side—enabling your spine to stay in a neutral horizontal position, without twisting.
To see all of CR’s sleep coverage, go to our Guide to Better Sleep.
How We Picked the Best Mattresses for Side Sleepers
People who sleep on their sides should choose a mattress that provides particularly stellar support for that position, along with the qualities that everyone wants in a mattress, such as good motion isolation, durability, and comfort.
In our mattress ratings, you can filter for mattresses with the best support for side sleepers of small, medium, and large sizes ( as well as other criteria). For this article, we did exactly that to find the top-performers. The results are listed below in alphabetical order by type.
How Consumer Reports Tests Mattresses
Our mattress tests assess a range of criteria, including support for back and side sleepers, as well as durability and stability (motion isolation). As with any position, your spine should stay aligned when you sleep on your side. To test a mattress’s ability to accomplish this, we map points on the spine while subjects lie on their side. We then connect those dots and compare how much the spine diverges from a horizontal line. This test is performed for small and large side sleepers; we then use these data points to calculate a score for average-size sleepers.
We also include scores for mattress comfort and owner satisfaction, according to data from survey results based on almost 67,000 mattresses. To learn more about how we test and rate mattresses, check out our mattress buying guide.
Best Mattresses for Side Sleepers
Mattresses that perform well in our side support tests span three different types: innerspring, foam, and adjustable air. To learn more about each category, check out our mattress buying guide.
Best Innerspring Mattresses for Side Sleepers
Innerspring mattresses consist of a layer of steel coils topped with fiber padding or (in the case of hybrids) foam. The coils offer contouring support and a buoyant feel, while the padding or foam provides some level of pressure relief for a side sleeper’s shoulders and hips.
Best Foam Mattresses for Side Sleepers
Foam mattresses tend to have high stabilization scores, which means you’re less likely to wake up your partner when you shift positions.
Best Adjustable Air Mattresses for Side Sleepers
Adjustable air mattresses are typically pricey, but they allow couples to adjust each side of their bed individually.
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