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Best Overall
Bear Elite Hybrid Mattress
Best for Pressure Relief
Nectar Sleep Nectar Premier Mattress
Best Organic Mattress
Birch Luxe Natural Mattress
Best for Anyone Battling Back Pain
Saatva Classic Mattress (11.5 Inch)
There’s no such thing as the best mattress for everyone. Not when there are so many different sleeping positions. However, most people are side sleepers. The numbers vary by study and how rigidly you define a side sleeper, but between half and three-quarters of people sleep on their side. (The older and heavier you are, the more likely you are to be a side sleeper, and it’s recommended that pregnant women sleep on their side.)
Firm mattresses are nice for back sleepers, but side and stomach sleepers may typically prefer a softer bed with some give for hips and knees. I am mostly a side sleeper. If you had asked me about my firmness preferences before I started reviewing bed-in-a-box mattresses, testing dozens for weeks over the year, I would’ve told you the softer the better. Indeed, if you’re a side sleeper you’re likely to gravitate toward cushy memory foam mattresses. But, as I’ve sampled more styles and religiously tracked my sleep on my Apple Watch, I’ve found that the best mattresses for side sleepers offer both cushion and support. The recommendations below have enough give to let your hips sink in for a natural spinal alignment without making you feel like rolling over is an uphill battle. Everything we recommend was tested for a week at the least. All of the prices shown are for queen-size models.
Be sure to check out our other sleep guides, including the Best Mattresses, Best Organic Mattresses, Best Bed Frames, Best Sleep Trackers, and our how-to on setting up a mattress in a box.
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Photograph: Bear
Best Overall
Bear Elite Hybrid Mattress
Having tested the original Bear mattress, which is a budget-friendly all-foam offering, I was unprepared for the Bear Elite Hybrid—it’s not just a different animal, but a whole new species. This five-layer hybrid mattress is a full 14 inches thick and firmer than most other side sleeper mattresses. The top layer is a quilted pillowtop that gives the Bear Elite a luxury feel that’s surprising at this price. The layer of copper-infused foam that keeps you cool during the night and the spring coils for support are also a nice touch.
After a short break-in period—noticeable on all mattresses but especially important with hybrids—I found the Bear Elite in medium firmness gave just the right sag to my hips and elbows while supporting me on my side. Since it’s a hybrid, there’s airflow in the innerspring layer that makes it breathable. It’s among the sturdiest mattresses in this guide, and the outer pillow top gets cooling benefits from Celliant fiber, a proprietary blend that has been studied for its benefits in athletic wear. I have periodic lower back pain, and I seek out medium-firm mattresses that offer the right amount of pressure relief without being so soft that I sink to a spot where my spine is out of alignment—the Bear Elite strikes the perfect balance.
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Photograph: Nectar
Best for Pressure Relief
Nectar Sleep Nectar Premier Mattress
The regular mattress from Nectar has been our top pick for side sleepers in our Best Mattresses guide for years. That mattress is all foam, but we’re finding ourselves moving more toward hybrids that have a layer of coils for support. Enter the Nectar Premium. For anyone who likes a softer mattress to slowly sink into, this is a great option given its excellent contouring and pressure relief. It has five layers of foam and gel and is softer than the original. This mattress is 13 inches thick with a satisfying squishiness and a cooling layer that’s a must for anyone who sleeps hot. All this foam does give the Nectar Premier unmatched motion isolation—your partner could tap dance next to you and you’re unlikely to notice.
This mattress is best for true side sleepers. If you are a combo sleeper who often rolls over to your stomach or back, it may be too soft for comfort, given the deep cushion that could turn your arms or knees into new pressure points. Two nice things about Nectar are that the company offers a full year of trial and a forever warranty, so if you feel like you made the wrong choice, you can ask for a do-over.
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Photograph: Cole Slutzky/Birch
Best Organic Mattress
Birch Luxe Natural Mattress
The standard model from Birch has long been our pick for side sleepers who want an organic mattress, but Birch’s new higher-end Luxe model impressed me over my month of testing, thanks to its medium-firm feel and structured support. The Luxe is GOTS-certified organic and uses natural latex with no polyurethane-based foams.
Like the standard Birch, the Luxe has multiple layers of wool plus a layer of individually wrapped coils for support and cushioning. It adds a pillowy Euro top for firmer edges and an extra layer of blended cashmere, which gives it truly exceptional temperature regulation. For side sleepers, the coils offer full lumbar support and are arranged to effectively cradle you after a break-in period of two weeks. I enjoyed my time with this mattress, but not as much as my 8-year-old daughter, who fell in love with the soft organic cotton top and slight springiness. She would not let me take the Birch Luxe out of the house after testing, and instead used it as an auxiliary couch in our living room.
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Photograph: Saatva
Best for Anyone Battling Back Pain
Saatva Classic Mattress (11.5 Inch)
Unlike others on this list, the Saatva Classic is not a mattress in a box. This will be delivered to your home by someone in a moving truck. I was sent a queen-size mattress for testing and elected to leave it in my living room for a week rather than lug it up the stairs myself. (You should get someone to help if you need to move it to a different room in your home.)
It was still a great week of sleep, as the Saatva classic (in the “luxury” firmness level) is comfortable, with features designed specifically to help those who struggle with back pain. There’s a pillow top made from organic cotton that’s quilted in zones to promote lumbar support. Below that, there’s a well-positioned high-density foam layer in the middle of the mattress for lumbar support. There’s a layer of pocketed coils made with 14.5-gauge steel that are zoned to support your back and are separate from the base layer made with heavier 13-gauge steel coils. All those springs do make it a bit more bouncy than others on this list, but in a good way. The entire mattress is lined with high-density foam, meaning you get peerless edge support. The company says it’s built to last 15 years, and the build quality sure seems to back that claim up. Time will tell. Just don’t throw out your back trying to move it yourself.
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Photograph: Nolah
Best for Spine Alignment
Nolah Evolution 15-Inch
We test mattresses over a number of weeks for a reason. Rarely is the break-in period as pronounced as it was with the Nolah Evolution 15 in the “Luxury Firm” option. This thick and tightly structured hybrid felt like an overstuffed balloon out of the box and took two full weeks to break in. By the end of the month, I was sad to send it away.
The Nolah Evolution has seven layers, notably a full inch of high-density foam and a layer of heavy-duty 13.75-gauge coils. Both take some time to soften up. After the break-in though, they provided just the right support and brought my spine into perfect alignment. The top three layers of this mattress promise cooling via thermal conductivity and air circulation, but it ultimately slept neither warm nor cool. This is a big, heavy mattress (the queen weighs 115 pounds!), but it feels super durable. Just be warned that your initial impression may be that it’s a little too stiff. Nolah has a 120-night trial, but you’ll have to pay a $99 fee for mattress pickup.
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Photograph: Amazon
Best Budget Mattress
Linenspa 10-Inch Hybrid Mattress
The Linenspa hybrid mattress did not inspire immediate confidence. This is one of those Amazon products with more than 100,000 reviews of questionable provenance. I was unable to make contact with the company directly, so I bought it, and it arrived the next day. When I cracked the heavy (75-pound) box open to let the springs and foam breathe, my impressions didn’t improve. The Linenspa’s outer shell fits like one of those baggy sweaters your kindergarten teacher wore, with the fabric bunching in weird places. The memory foam layer is uneven and in one corner seems to disappear. The edge support is uneven too.
Ultimately, these are minor issues if you’re looking for a cheap mattress. I got a great night’s sleep right from the first. After extensive testing, it continued to impress. Side sleepers will surely notice the springs are creakier than the more expensive offerings on this list. Sometimes those springs make you feel like you’re floating on an uneven cloud—pricier mattresses avoid this by varying the size of springs in different zones—but the overall feel is supportive and comfortable. It’s just hard to beat the value at $300. I’ve tested some nice mattresses over the past year, and I do have to say that you get what you pay for to a certain extent. You spend a third of your life in bed, and if you’ve got the money to invest in a more expensive mattress, it’s well worth it. But if you’re on a tight budget and need a comfortable night of side sleeping, the Linenspa is a solid pick.
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Photograph: Bear
Why We Like Hybrid Mattresses for Side Sleepers
For most side sleepers, you might initially think that memory foam is nicer than a hybrid mattress that has a layer of springs (often called coils). On memory foam, you sink into a fluffy little cloud and get support on the sides. The problem is that when you’re sleeping well and not moving much, over the course of a night, that foam will slowly but surely compress under you. If it’s just one layer of cheap foam, after a while it will feel like you’re sleeping on a yoga mat. That’s why mattresses with multiple layers of foam of different weights are better, and why we like hybrids better yet. That layer of springs means the the foam doesn’t compact nearly as much in my experience. A good hybrid gives you a chance to sleep for a solid six hours without needing to change position, which isn’t necessarily the case for me on an all-foam mattress.
What’s the ideal firmness for side sleepers?
Most side sleepers gravitate toward softer mattresses, which usually means memory foam instead of innerspring mattresses. Over the course of a night, though, you want to be sure you have a mattress with enough support. All types of mattresses can offer that, but be sure to pay close attention to the firmness scale the company advertises and the firmness options within it. Also take your body type into account, as the more body weight you have, the firmer the mattress you’ll want.
Martin Cizmar is the tech category director for the WIRED Reviews team. He specializes in testing mattresses, grills, terrestrial TV antennas, and other large, cumbersome items. Previously he was the editor in chief of Kansas City magazine, a senior editor at Raw Story, an editor at alternative weeklies in Portland… Read more
