Best Mattresses with Edge Support

When most people shop for mattresses, they think about things like firmness, size, construction, and brand. However, another major factor in the comfort and durability of a mattress is its edge support. Despite its lesser-known status, edge support is pretty indispensable.

Mattress edge support helps ensure you don’t slide off the bed when you sleep close to the edge. Strong edge support also makes getting in and out of bed much easier, especially for those with limited mobility. With that in mind, here are some of the best mattresses with superior edge support of 2024.

Best Mattresses with Edge Support

If you want a mattress that’s got a lot more to offer than edge support alone, check out the AS3 Hybrid by Amerisleep. This mattress has something for everybody, from hot sleepers to active sleepers to sleepers with allergies, and more!

All Amerisleep mattresses have free shipping, a 20-year warranty, and a 100-night sleep trial.

SEE ALSO: Best Hybrid Mattress for Side Sleepers

Those who want a performance mattress designed by and for physically active people should check out the Zoma Hybrid. This hybrid mattress was designed for restorative and recuperative sleep.

Zoma mattresses ship free and include a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty.

SEE ALSO: Best Mattresses for Pressure Points

Those who want the support and responsiveness of a hybrid without the unpleasant side effect of a hybrid’s average price tag should check out the Vaya Hybrid. This mattress offers traditional hybrid comfort without breaking the bank.

All Vaya mattresses include free shipping, a 10-year warranty, and a 100-night sleep trial.

SEE ALSO: Best Mattresses Under $1000

If you want a mattress that offers tons of edge support without sacrificing an ounce of luxury, consider the Helix Midnight Luxe. This mattress features high-quality ingredients and luxury features – all without the luxury price tag.

SEE ALSO: Mattress Sizes and Bed Dimensions

The Zoma Boost is constructed to provide not just superior support across the surface and at the edges, but to also deliver beyond-average comfort, so you can wake up feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the day.

All Zoma mattresses, including the Boost, come with free shipping, a 10-year warranty and a 100-night sleep trial.

See Also: Best Mattress for Hip Pain

Read Our Full Review of the Zoma Boost Mattress

Those who want a mattress that features just as much bounce as edge support should consider the Natural 11 by Nolah. This mattress features springy latex and bouncy pocket coils for a highly responsive feel without the motion transfer of an innerspring mattress.

SEE ALSO: Best Eco-Friendly Mattresses

Most innerspring mattresses don’t offer great edge support – or comfort, for that matter – but the Saatva Classic is a sturdy, contouring, supportive exception. This is all thanks to its unique hybridized design that increases the adaptability and pressure relief of the innerspring mattress without sacrificing its traditional bounce.

SEE ALSO: Best Mattresses Without Fiberglass

If you want a mattress that can keep you cool as a cucumber no matter how hot you sleep, all while providing amazing edge support, check out the GhostBed Flex. This mattress features multiple cooling technologies to banish heat from your bed.

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If you want a mattress that creates as hostile an environment for allergens as it does a comfortable environment for you, check out the Bear Elite Hybrid. The copper infusions in this mattress provide comfort in more ways than one.

SEE ALSO: Best Hypoallergenic Mattresses for Allergies

How to Choose the Best Mattress for Edge Support

You don’t need to choose a mattress for ample edge support alone. Edge support is just one part of a great mattress, but it’s an important part. The good news is, nowadays, many mattress manufacturers understand that and take measures to ensure the best mattresses are up to snuff when it comes to support around their perimeters.

SEE ALSO: Best Mattress for Tall People

What Is Edge Support?

Simply put, edge support is exactly what it sounds like. It’s extra support around the edges of your mattress. You may think that this extra support is no big deal, but if you don’t have it, you could experience several different problems.

One of the biggest problems you might run into in a mattress with poor edge support is getting in and out of bed. A mattress with no edge support will not support you when you sit on it, meaning you could be sliding around or even falling when you’re getting into or out of bed because you cannot sit long enough to put your feet on the floor.

People who have a medical condition that restricts movement can especially find edge support helpful. For example, many of the best mattresses for arthritis have pressure-relieving foams for sensitive joints and edge support.

Another big issue might specifically impact couples because they’ll be sleeping closer to the edge while in bed with a partner. When you sleep on one side of the mattress near or at the edge, if you don’t have edge support, you’ll be more likely to fall out of bed while asleep. This can result in injury, which is why it’s so important to ensure you have proper edge support.

SEE ALSO: Best Mattress in a Box

Ideal Mattress Materials for Edge Support

Just about every mattress type can have poor or good edge support. It all depends on how the manufacturer decides to handle the perimeter of the bed. This means you’ll want to look at your mattress construction to decide whether it has enough edge support for you.

On the other hand, not all mattress types are created equal. Some are much more comfortable mattresses and accommodating for certain types of sleepers than others.

Memory Foam

Memory foam is made up of a special type of petroleum-based foam called flexible polyurethane. Originally, flexible polyurethane was designed to cushion the human body during high-velocity flights. But its amazing ability to contour and support meant the bedding industry soon caught on to how fantastic a mattress material it truly is.

A memory foam mattress can alter its shape to fit yours in a way that no other mattress material can. It can follow the curve of your body to offer support where you need it and cradling for your pressure points all at once. In addition, the high-density foam bases of memory foam mattresses almost always offer fantastic edge support.

The main issues you have to worry about with memory foam are its slow response time and its tendency to retain heat. These issues typically only impact hot sleepers and active sleepers, so if you don’t toss and turn or overheat at night, you may not have to worry about these problems at all.

If you sleep hot and want memory foam anyway, consider gel memory foam mattresses as an alternative. The material is able to draw heat away from your body.

SEE ALSO: Best 10 Inch Mattress

Latex Foam

Hot sleepers and active sleepers who want an alternative to memory foam should check out latex foam mattresses. Natural latex comes from the sap of the rubber tree. As a natural foam, it’s much more breathable and responsive than memory foam.

This means that sleepers who like to toss and turn or who heat up like a Dutch oven as soon as the lights go out might enjoy latex over memory foam. And, memory foam and latex mattresses have base foam layers that typically offer some of the best edge support. Overall, the material’s buoyancy establishes a highly supportive mattress.

The main issue with latex is its potential to trigger allergies. If you have a latex allergy, you probably want to avoid latex mattresses. You might be thinking that you’re safe because the mattress cover and sheets will be between you and the latex, but there’s still the potential for exposure.

Latex foam mattresses are also very heavy and much more expensive than memory foam, which can be prohibitive for some people. Especially if you are looking at organic latex mattresses, which have to go through specialized production.

Hybrid

Hybrid mattresses consist of a pocketed coil support core with at least two inches of comfort foam on top. This foam can be memory foam or latex foam, so you have options.

One of the best features of hybrid mattresses is their pocketed coil support layer. These individually wrapped coils provide all the responsiveness and support of springs, but they can move independently of one another. This allows them to offer much more adaptability and motion isolation than open coil systems.

Be aware, though, not all hybrids have excellent edge support. For superior edge support, you’ll want to look for hybrid mattresses that feature high-density foam railing around the coils or reinforced perimeter coils.

You should also be aware that hybrid mattresses are not as durable as straight foam mattresses because their coils lose tension and break down. When you combine this reduced durability with the initial cost of the average hybrid mattress, this makes for the most expensive mattress on the market. This can be prohibitive for some.

Innerspring

As a general rule, innerspring mattresses typically have decent edge support. Their open coil support cores are wired together, which can maintain the tension around the entirety of the mattress. This means the edge will not collapse when you put your weight on it.

You might think this means innerspring mattresses are the best mattresses around, but you’d be wrong. Traditional innerspring mattresses might have decent edge support, but they have so many other problems that this one positive quality is not enough to redeem the whole mattress.

Open coil systems are wired together, which means their coils cannot move independently of one another. This means a traditional innerspring mattress tends to sag rather than contour to your body shape. These mattresses also wear out much faster than hybrids and foam mattresses alike.

The metal-on-metal contact inside them also means you’ll be listening to squeaking and creaking in your mattress almost from the get-go. And open coils are terrible at motion transfer control, as well.

SEE ALSO: Best Adjustable Bed and Mattress Combo

Ideal Mattress Firmness for Edge Support

Typically, firmer mattresses or extra firm mattresses offer better edge support because they offer more support overall. However, any mattress firmness can be designed to offer adequate edge support, so you should choose your firmness based on your sleep needs and not on the edge support factor alone.

Sleep Position

Your preferred sleep position has a higher impact on your firmness needs than any other factor. It decides how your spine lines up, where your body contacts the bed, and what kind of combination of pressure relief and support you need.

Back Sleepers

Back sleepers need a combination of pressure relief and support that slightly favors support. This is because too much sinkage can bend the spine forward and throw it out of alignment, Meanwhile, too little contouring in mattresses for back sleeping can allow the lumbar region to collapse onto the sleep surface.

Either way, if your mattress cannot simultaneously contour to the shape of your spine and keep your body lifted, you will be sleeping in a hunched position. This means back sleepers almost always need medium-firm mattresses (6 of 10) to ensure they get the right combination of lift and contour.

SEE ALSO: Best Pillows for Back Sleepers

Side Sleepers

Side sleepers usually have problems with pressure point pain. When you sleep on your side, your body weight presses your hip and shoulder joints down onto the sleep surface. If your sleep surface pushes back against this pressure, you can wake up with pain in your shoulder and hip joints. For this reason, side sleepers typically need softer mattresses for side sleeping.

Soft mattresses absorb pressure rather than exert it, which helps cradle your joints and prevents you from waking up in pain. Side sleepers who prefer a little more lift and support can consider a medium-soft to medium mattress (4 to 5 of 10) but should generally avoid going higher.

SEE ALSO: Best Pillows for Side Sleepers

Stomach Sleepers

Stomach sleepers usually wind up with the most lower back pain of any sleep position. When you sleep on your stomach, it allows your pelvis to sink into the mattress. This pulls the lumbar region out of alignment, which can leave you with pain in this area when you wake up in the morning. To avoid pelvic sinkage and overarching in the spine, stomach sleepers should choose a firm mattress (7 of 10).

Firmer mattresses for stomach sleeping offer additional lift, which can keep the pelvis from sinking and ensure the lumbar region is not overarched. This can help reduce or even eliminate the lower back pain associated with sleeping in this position.

Combo Sleepers

Combination sleepers don’t have a strong preference for any sleep position. Rather they may choose any position on any given night. This means they need a mattress that is versatile enough to accommodate all sleep positions without being specifically designed for any single sleep style.

Generally, medium mattresses (5 of 10) fit this bill. Medium mattresses for combination sleepers offer an even balance of support and pressure relief that can allow you to sleep comfortably in multiple positions some of the time. This versatility is also what makes medium mattresses great for guestrooms.

Body Type

Though it is true that your sleep style is the number one factor that decides your firmness needs, some people cannot discount their body type from the equation. If you fall into the range of 130 to 230 pounds, you generally don’t need to worry about how your body type impacts your firmness needs. If you fall outside this range, you may need to adjust your firmness.

Petite Sleepers

Petite sleepers weigh less than 130 pounds. When you’re this light, your body may not exert enough pressure on the sleep surface to offer you sufficient compression if you stick with a mattress that has a firmness corresponding to your sleep position.

You may need to go down a firmness level to get enough pressure relief from a mattress for lightweight sleepers. For instance, a petite stomach sleeper might need to go down from a firm to a medium-firm mattress.

Plus-Size Sleepers

Plus-size sleepers (weighing over 230 pounds) have the opposite problem. When you weigh more than 230 pounds, your body weight may exert too much pressure on a mattress whose firmness matches your sleep style.

This means you may need to go up a firmness level in mattresses for heavier people. For instance, heavier back sleepers may need to step up from a medium-firm to a firm mattress to get the right contouring and lift.

Does Mattress Size Affect Edge Support?

Yes, the size of a mattress can affect its edge support to some extent. Generally, larger mattresses such as queen, king, or California king sizes have a larger surface area and may be more prone to sagging or losing edge support over time. However, this can also depend on the specific construction and materials used in the mattress.

When it comes to edge support, a split king mattress may feel similar to a traditional king-size mattress in the areas where the two twin XL mattresses meet. However, the edges of each twin XL mattress may have slightly different levels of support and firmness.

As a reminder, here are the dimensions of standard mattress sizes.

Can a Mattress Topper Affect Edge Support?

Yes, a mattress topper can affect edge support to some extent. Edge support refers to the level of firmness and stability provided along the mattress’s edges, and a mattress topper adds softness or firmness to the overall sleep surface.

A soft mattress topper may make the edges of the mattress feel less supportive and more prone to sinking. On the other hand, if the mattress topper is firmer and provides more support, it may help reinforce the edges of the mattress and provide better edge support overall.

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FAQs

Is base foam good for edge support?

Base foam can offer some of the best edge support around! Base foam usually has consistent support from one edge to the other. This means that the edges of your latex or memory foam mattress should stay just as supported as the middle, even when you’re sitting on them. Just make sure you’re buying a quality foam mattress with durable base foam.

Which is better for hybrid edge support, foam rails or reinforced coils?

Both high-density foam rails and reinforced perimeter coils can offer excellent edge support. However, hot sleepers specifically may want to look into reinforced coils. Foam rails can block some of the air circulation necessary for keeping the hybrid mattress as cool as possible. Most sleepers won’t notice the difference, but hot sleepers may.

Can I improve my mattress’s edge support without replacing it?

Unfortunately, there are not many ways to improve an existing mattress’s poor edge support. Using a tight fitted sheet and a sturdy mattress protector can help. These can reduce how the edges can sag under your body weight.

You can also try reinforcing the mattress with a mattress foundation or a bunkie board underneath. But the only way to truly fix poor edge support is to replace your mattress.

Why is edge support important?

Edge support is important for two reasons. First, it makes getting in and out of bed easier. If the edge of your bed collapses when you sit on it, it can mean entering and exiting the bed entails a lot of sliding around and slipping.

Second, edge support is especially important for couples sleeping in the same bed because each partner will have to sleep near the edge of the bed. If that edge cannot support weight, it can allow sleepers to fall out of bed during the night.

Do I always need a mattress with edge support?

If you don’t have any mobility issues and sleep alone in the middle of the bed, you might be able to get away with a mattress with poor edge support. That is, as long as you’re okay with the potential difficulties of getting in and out of bed.

Everyone else should avoid skimping out on edge support. It’s vital for sleeping on the side of the bed and getting in and out of bed with ease.

Bottom Line

It’s easy to see why edge support is so important in a quality mattress. Without it, getting in and out of bed is infinitely harder. Not to mention sleeping close to the edge of the bed, which many partners do on some of the best mattresses for couples, may be impossible without edge support.

Thankfully, all the mattresses on our list offer tons of edge support and a host of other pluses that make them some of the most comfortable and durable mattresses on the market.

Dr. Burns tests each mattress at eachnight’s facility to make sure the recommendations are based on real, expert reviews.