Say you’re a petite 5 feet tall, and your partner is a robust 6 feet 2 inches. You sleep on your side, and your partner is a back sleeper. Now, thanks to our newly expanded mattress ratings, you can drill down past the overall score and zero in on only those mattresses that suit you both. The key to comfort in a mattress is support. A mattress for people who sleep on their sides should keep the alignment of the spine fairly parallel to the bed. For back sleepers, we measure how well it maintains the natural curvature of the spine in that position. But, as you may already know from painful years of experience, the same mattress doesn’t necessarily offer the same level of support for people of different statures. So we use test subjects that represent the lower and upper 5 percent of the population by size. Our petite women range from 4 ft 11 1/2" to 5 ft 1 1/2" and 110 to 127.5 pounds, and our large men range from 6 ft 2" to 6 ft 4" and 220 to 242 pounds. For each of them, we measure support while on their sides and on their backs, then average those scores to get the result for a midsized person.
That’s how we came up with six columns for support: petite, medium, and large/tall side sleepers; and petite, medium, and large/tall back sleepers. The petite side sleeper will find only one mattress that scores excellent for his or her stature, the Sealy Posturepedic Hybrid Trust Cushion, a $1,275 innerspring. For all the other body sizes, it scores very good but not excellent. If you prioritize the large/tall back sleeper’s comfort, the Charles P. Rogers Powercore Estate 5000 has excellent back support and very good side support. It scores one point higher overall and costs $1,500. (Online subscribers can sort the ratings by columns, making this exercise even easier.) Support isn’t the only factor for couples. A healthy person shifts positions 40 to 60 times per night. Double that for a couple, and that’s a lot of tossing and turning for any mattress to cope with. That’s why we also test for stabilization, which is essentially a gauge of bounciness. It provides a very good indicator of whether your movements will disturb your partner, or vice versa.
Only four of our 74 rated mattresses aced the stabilization test. Of those, the highest-rated overall is the Sleep Number c2, $800, one of two adjustable air mattresses we tested. The other three stability stalwarts are innerspring models, the best of which is the Sealy Posturepedic Hybrid Elite Kelburn, $1,350. None of the memory foam mattresses earned excellent scores for stabilization, so steer clear of that type if this is a big concern for you and your partner. That said, plenty of foam mattresses have very good stability, so it becomes a matter of priorities. And while you may have to make a few compromises when shopping for a mattress for you and your partner, we hope our new ratings will bring you that much closer to somnolent bliss.Consumer Reports has updated our mattress Ratings, and the best we’ve tested provide plenty of support, resist bounciness, allow easy movement, and should last for many years before you need to replace it. You won’t find scores for comfort in our Ratings;
that’s an individual judgment. But here’s a look at some mattresses that did especially well in back and side support. If you sleep on your back Our tests for back support graph the spine’s natural curves for a range of adults, and then we record how consistently mattresses maintain that curve. Charles P. Rogers Powercore Estate 5000, $1,500 This innerspring isn’t the best choice if you occasionally roll over to your side, but it delivered better back support than any other innerspring—or foam bed—in our tests. We tested its firmness as medium. Spring Air Back Supporter Natalie, $1,200 Sold at Costco, this memory foam bed also wasn’t notably good for side sleepers, but for the back, it was impressive. The manufacturer claims the mattress is “ultra firm,” but we judged it as medium. Sleep Number i8 Bed, $3,000 Our testers judged this adjustable-air mattress, topped by foam, as soft. But this and its lower-price sibling were among the very best at back support.
With these, you can adjust firmness one half of the bed at a time—helpful if two sleep partners like a different feel. Sleep Number c2 Bed, $700 This adjustable-air mattress fared almost as well but for more than $2,000 less. One primary difference is this bed’s firm feel, likely because of the considerably thinner foam topping. Roll over now and then? Both these Sleep Number beds were impressive for side sleepers as well. If you sleep on your side For our side-sleeping test, we check how well a mattress keeps the spine relatively horizontal when someone is lying on his or her side. All three of our top picks for side sleepers also fared above-average at back support. No mattress, however, received our top score in this test. Serta Perfect Day iSeries Applause, $1,075 This innerspring has gotten a bit difficult to find, but it’s a winner if you can locate it. We judged it as medium, which apparently didn’t hurt in our tests; it’s the top-Rated innerspring.
Beautyrest ReCharge Hybrid Jeffrey’s Bay, $1,800 While pricey, this Beautyrest was among our top innersprings, and we judged it as medium. One caveat: Couples might find it a bit bouncy if one partner gets up during the night. Casper The Casper 10”, $850 This online company produced a winner in this memory-foam bed, which we judged as medium. You might wish you could try it out—and if you're shopping in New York City you can—but we found its return policies to be very generous. Need a new mattress? Our online mattress Ratings now include almost 40 models, along with companion, survey-based Ratings of mattress stores and brands. Be sure to see our mattress buying guide before narrowing your choices. —Ed Perratore (@EdPerratore on Twitter)Looking for the best mattress for your money? To cut through the clutter of advertising you'll see out there, Consumer Reports has a look at the best mattresses and mattress retailers. The magazine broke out their findings by category: Traditional innerspring, memory foam and adjustable air.
In each category, Consumer Reports recommends a best buy, as well as other mattresses they recommend based on ratings. Innerspring: The Denver Mattress Doctor's Choice for $500. The Sealy Posturepedic Hybrid Trust Cushion for $1,275 is also a best buy in this category, with a higher rating, but it's obviously a bit more expensive. Memory foam: Tuft & Needle Ten for $600. (Message from Tuft & Needle: "We don't actually use any memory foam in our mattress. We use our own time of polyfoam, T&N Adaptive™ foam. We created it with a foam scientist to have the pressure relief and comfort of memory foam and the breathability and support of latex foam.") The Novaform 14" Serafina Pearl Gel (Costco) is also a "best buy" pick for this category, but it's more expensive at $800. Adjustable air: Sleep Number c2 Bed for $800. It's important to remember that price does not necessarily equate to satisfaction with mattresses. A more expensive mattress may not make for a better product.
For more tips on finding the right mattress for you, check out Consumer Reports' buying guide here. Read more: What you need to know about sleeping pills On the question of retailers, Consumer Reports ranked the Original Mattress Factory stores as the top choice for customer satisfaction. Costco Wholesale was a close second. The high placement for Costco may reflect their return policy on mattresses: A full money back refund without penalty and no time limit. That really makes Costco stand apart! I particularly like the warehouse clubs for mattress shopping, and I've long advised people to test the mattress right there in the store for an extended period. Bring a book or tablet to Costco or Sam's Club and get those mattresses off the displays or yank them off the walls. Then lay there for 15 minutes and see how you like the feel before you buy. There's one more option I want to mention to you. Casper is a new mattress company that's beloved by millennials. Their mattress comes via package delivery in this tiny box and you open it and watch it unfold before your eyes.