How To Have a Mattress Topper on One Side of The Bed

If two people sleep on the same bed and have different firmness preferences, a topper can be added to one side of the bed to, in effect, provide different firmness levels for each side.

This avoids having two people sleep in separate beds or having to buy a bed with adjustable firmness for each side.

To accomplish this on a king-size mattress, you will likely need to buy an x-long twin topper and place it on one side of the bed under the linens. (An x-long twin topper in most cases will be one-half the size of a king-size mattress.)

Foam, memory foam or latex generally work best for this as they don't have skirts to tuck in.

The fact that the topper will cover only half the bed probably means it will slide around some when you lie on it. So you may need to secure the topper by taping it with two sided tape directly to the mattress. (This taping may, however, void your mattress warranty.)

With a queen bed, things are more complicated. There is no topper size that will cover one side of a queen bed; the topper would be either too small or too large. As a result, you will likely need to buy an x-long twin sized topper and cut it down with a knife or something sharp so it will fit half of the queen bed. It will need to be a foam, memory foam or latex topper because these can be cut and don't have skirts. And you will likely need to secure it as described in the above paragraph.

A final thought: With the topper on one-half of the bed, one side of the mattress is going to be raised higher than the other. To minimize this look (if it bothers you), don't buy a topper any thicker than what you need to be comfortable.

Alternative Solution

An alternative to having a mattress topper on one side of the bed is to have a mattress that offers adjustable firmness for each side of the bed.

Air beds, such as the Sleep Number Bed, have separate air chambers on both sides of the bed which allow for personalized firmness for each sleeper.

Having separate firmness levels for each side is the main advantage of air beds, according to our air bed research.

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