Best Crib Mattress for 2024

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, your baby's bed should be firm for a few reasons. In their early stages of development, an infant's skeletal structure needs firm support to ensure proper alignment of their spine and bones. It's best to have a firm crib mattress that fits tightly in the crib, so ensure there are no gaps along the edges or any loose objects or fabric materials that could potentially become a breathing hazard.

Generally, crib mattresses fall into two main categories:

Innerspring mattress: An innerspring crib mattress is a more traditional mattress that relies on internal coil springs for support. The higher the number of coils, the more supportive the mattress. Because they include hundreds of steel coils, innerspring mattresses are almost always heavier than their foam counterparts. They also tend to be pricier.

Foam mattress: Foam crib mattresses make up the vast majority of the market. They're typically made of polyurethane foam and can be relatively inexpensive, thanks to their simpler construction. Within the foam crib mattress category, there are breathable mattresses with woven polymer cores that allow air to pass through more easily.

You might like the pillowy, sink-in feel of a soft mattress, but your baby needs to sleep on something a good deal firmer for their safety. A good crib mattress must be firm and supportive as a precaution against Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, according to Alex Savy, a certified sleep science coach and founder of SleepingOcean.

The American Academy of Pediatrics says soft mattresses, including those made of memory foam, can form indentations that increase suffocation risk. "A crib mattress should not be cushioning and hugging," Savy says. "Instead, it must spring back quickly when the pressure is applied."

You'll often see this certification on crib mattresses and many other baby products. Greenguard Gold certification signifies that a product has passed a battery of testing for chemical emissions called Volatile Organic Compounds. VOCs are released as a gas from paints, cleaning supplies and other materials. A Greenguard Gold certified product emits a very low amount of VOCs, if any.

Though Greenguard Gold is the most prevalent certification among crib mattresses, you'll see others. CertiPur-US is similar in that it certifies a product has low VOCs, but a mattress with this certification has also been made without ozone depleters, toxic flame retardants or phthalates. However, Greenguard Gold is generally considered the more stringent standard.

All standard-size crib mattresses are required by law to measure between 51 5/8 inches and 53 inches long and 27 1/4 and 28 inches wide. So yes, in theory, any standard crib mattress on sale today should fit any standard crib, but some will fit better than others. For instance, some mattresses' corners are square while others are rounded, leaving gaps. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission, two adult fingers should not be able to fit between the mattress and the crib's sides.