We receive free products to review and participate in affiliate programs, where we are compensated for items purchased through links from our site (at no cost to the buyer). See our for our list of comped products and affiliate programs. Choosing the right mattress for you and your partner can have a tremendous impact on the quality of your sleep. We always caution that there is never one “best” mattress, and that certainly applies for couples as well as people that sleep alone, but there are certain things that couples may need to prioritize when mattress shopping. My top mattress picks for couples include mattresses that are high quality, durable, and great value – but also prioritize motion isolation and customization. My three favorites are: Read below for more details on these mattresses to help decide on which one may be best for you. Helix is a bed-in-a-box company that is sold only online (providing good value), but the real story with them is their customization options.
When ordering a Helix mattress, you first take a quiz that asks you about your sleep preferences. They will ask you about your firmness preference, sleeping hot/cool preferences, and a few other factors. Then they will personalize your mattress based on your responses. What’s lesser known about Helix is that you can personalize each side of the bed – meaning you and your partner can both take the quiz and then have each side of the bed customized to each of your preferences. No other mattress at this price point offers anything close to this, making Helix our top mattress for couples pick. Learn more about Helix in our full . Loom and Leaf is one of our top reviewed mattresses in general and one of our best mattress for side sleepers winners, but we also recommend it for couples because of its outstanding performance in motion isolation. Loom & Leaf is a very high quality memory foam mattress (think Tempur-pedic), but it follows an online-only business model, making it significantly more affordable than other mattresses in the market with different specs.
I like this mattress for couples because the motion transfer is simply non-existent. If your partner is kicking and tossing on the other side of the bed, you may not even notice. Learn more about Loom and Leaf in our full Loom and Leaf review. Sleep Number makes the list because it also allows personalization on each side of the mattress. They have unique air-mattress technology that some people really love. The downside with Sleep Number is that it tends to be polarizing, with reviews showing that some people love it and some people hate it. The price is also on the high end as well. If Sleep Number is interesting for you and your partner, I recommend going to a local spot and testing it out – this is not one you want to buy online to see if you like it. Use the three recommendations above as a starting point, but you may want to branch out. What are the key features that I look for when considering a mattress for a couple? Option 1: Find The Right Compromise– You should really dig into the characteristics, sleeping styles, and preferences of both sleepers.
See where there is common ground, and potentially there can be a mattress that is a good compromise. Option 2: If Compromise Just Isn’t Possible, Consider Customized or Adjustable Mattresses– If the sleeping style and preferences of you and your partner are so different that compromise just isn’t possible, then there are still a few options for you. Sleep Number provides adjustable beds where each side of the mattress can have its firmness adjusted. A mattress like that could be an intriguing option. If you sleep with someone else in the bed, you don’t want their movements to disturb you. The best way to address this is by finding a mattress with good motion isolation. That essentially means if you put pressure on one part of the bed, the other parts don’t feel anything. If you’re in a showroom, try putting an object on the other side of the bed while you’re on it to see if it’s disturbed. Below is a video of me completing the test on the Lull mattress, which performs well.
You don’t necessarily need a special mattress if you are a couple, but it really comes into play if you have different firmness preferences or different weights. Helix is my top recommendation for couples looking to personalize each side of the mattress, but there are a number of different options that will work for each pair depending on what they need.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.