Best Mattresses for Side Sleepers

What are the best mattress for side sleepers?

Side sleepers will generally prefer a mattress that is more on the medium-soft to soft side.

. You will still want a good support to keep your spine in alignment and supported. Having softer foams on top will allow for your hip and shoulder to sink in easier with less pressure.

These mattresses are some of our top picks for side sleepers.  These all performed excellent for pressure relief on the side and shoulder when side sleeping.  What we look for here is to have less force pushing back up against your body in this position.  Below you will find some of the brands we thought performed best in this area.

Support & Spinal Alignment

Side sleepers need a mattress that has enough comfort layers on top to provide contouring.  These layers need to be thick enough and have the proper density to provide pressure relief where your shoulder and hip drive into the mattress.  The top comfort layers are one of the most important aspects to consider when looking for a side sleeping mattress.  Many of the thinner 10″ online mattresses will only have 3″ of premium foams on top.  Some of these work great if the core is not super firm but generally, we recommend mattresses that are a little thicker and have softer contouring foams.  The base is also important to make sure you have great deep support for your body and for the overall mattress longevity.

mattress for side sleepers

If you are looking for bunkbeds, check out our best tripple bunkbeds review.

Side Sleepers Need Something Soft, But Not Too Soft

best mattress for a person who is a side sleeper
Sleeping on your side means that the curves of your body need to be contoured. Also where your hip and shoulder spear into the mattress it needs to be forgiving enough to alleviate pressure in those areas.

Having a mattress that is soft on top, yet still supportive underneath will be ideal for side sleepers. With a softer mattress your hip and shoulder will have the better pressure relief and areas like your waist will be contoured and supported at the same time. You will still want to choose a mattress that has a good foam core or a good quality coil unit to still provide good deep support under the contouring layers.  However, the necessary sink is best achieved through the added softer layers on top of it.

For side sleepers, we recommend looking at a range between a 2 and 6.5 on a softness-to-firmness scale depending on a person’s weight. A heavy person may want to go towards the 6 and a lighter person toward the 2 since they will not have as much weight to sink into the mattress as a heavier person would. These mattresses range from very soft to medium and for a heavier sleeper perhaps a medium-firm.

soft to firm chart