A bed head-scratcher

April 30, 2020 11:00 AM

Why are standard mattresses so short? As a life-long short person I'm used to a lot of newly manufactured furniture being too large, especially the height and depth of seating. But beds seem the opposite: I'm ok, but I can't imagine getting quality sleep if I was even an inch taller.

Subtracting some unusable real estate due to the pillow and the downward curvature of the tucked-in sheets at the bottom of the bed, at 5-foot-5, I'm thisclose to hitting the bottom of the mattress, my toes uncomfortably cramped by the sheets.

Why is this? And, given the height bell curve, why hasn't the mattress revolution happened yet?

posted by Text TK to Home & Garden (38 answers total)

I’m 5’11 and after a quick jaunt to my bed, I appear to have half a foot of space from my heels to the edge of the bed, when lying on my back. On my side (so feet are laying flat and take more room) there’s still about 3 inches. I don’t use a tucked in sheet, though. I can imagine that a fitted sheet would be uncomfortable laying on your back with your toes sticking straight up, but I think that would happen even with loads of space. Maybe that’s the problem?

Or are you possibly using a child mattress and don’t know it?
posted by brook horse at 11:07 AM on April 30, 2020 [4 favorites]

Sometimes I find myself thinking "has my bed always been this short?" and then I realize I've got my pillow scooted down like 10 inches from the head of the bed.

I would say a large majority of people do not tuck in their sheets like you describe, so that problem isn't gonna be widespread.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:13 AM on April 30, 2020 [4 favorites]

I’m 5’11, and I just hang my feet off the bottom. I don’t tuck in my sheets, and my footboard is not solid, so I can position my feet in the holes.

I do remember that when I went to college, they advised us that the dorm mattresses were “XL”, and that some sheets wouldn’t fit. That was 22 years ago.
posted by kevinbelt at 11:16 AM on April 30, 2020 [2 favorites]

You may sleep weird. I’m 6’ and have tons of room.

Changing from the current standard sizes requires changing a billion products; not gonna happen without a huge driving force, and there’s a strong disincentive to be the first weirdo product out there. Frames, sheets, blankets, but also consider many bed rooms are sized such that a longer bed would be cramped.

Anyone got a good comparison of standard bed sizes around the world?
posted by SaltySalticid at 11:18 AM on April 30, 2020

I'm 6'2", and I hate the footboard SO MUCH (and yet somehow not enough to make a stink over the bedframe that my spouse likes). In a lot of positions it's no problem, but in certain snuggles my feet stick off the bed, which would be fine if they didn't lie directly on the hard wooden footboard. I just try to maneuver the covers to be under my ankles as a cushion. Such problems! But, yeah we don't tuck tight, either.
posted by rikschell at 11:18 AM on April 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

Also, if you want a longer bed, you can always get a California King. They're uncommon, but still a standard size.
posted by rikschell at 11:20 AM on April 30, 2020 [3 favorites]

My husband and I noticed this difference years ago - I sleep on top of my pillow, and he sleeps almost underneath it? It's hard for me to describe. But when we lay side by side he is a good 6" lower down on the bed than I am.
posted by muddgirl at 11:24 AM on April 30, 2020

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there doesn't have to be "unusable real estate due to pillow".
posted by muddgirl at 11:25 AM on April 30, 2020 [5 favorites]

I'm also wondering, what position do you sleep in? From how you describe the foot issue it sounds like you're flat on your back with your legs completely extended, which I'd suspect is unusual.
posted by showbiz_liz at 11:26 AM on April 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

Are you in the USA? What size bed do you have?

Note that there are a few inches of length difference even between common standard bed sizes, such as Full and Queen in the US... I imagine that taller people are more likely to opt for a queen-size mattress rather than a full.

Mattress size chart here.

That said, reading some of these replies is blowing my mind... some of you stick your feet through the gaps in your headboard? And you're OK with that? Is this common? I had no idea the discomfort that all the tall people in my life were experiencing.
posted by mekily at 11:33 AM on April 30, 2020 [3 favorites]

Standard American bed sizes are:

Twin: 3'3" x 6'3"
Twin XL: 3'3" x 6'8"
Full: 4'6" x 6'3"
Queen: 5'0 x 6'8"
King: 6'4" x 6'8"
California King: 6'0" x 7'0"

Mr. Kouti (5'7") and I (5'0") share a queen bed. Our standard pillows (20" top to bottom, 30" wide) are right up at the top of the headboard. When I'm lying on my side stretched out in a normal position, I can easily feel where the mattress ends if I just point my toes. But I usually curl up at least a little, regardless of which side I am sleeping on. Mr. Kouti is a back sleeper, and his head is usually higher on the bed than mine is; he can reach the end of the bed, but doesn't feel like his feet are about to fall off it or anything.

We do not tuck our top sheet in fully, though. Hospital corners look nice and are a PITFA to deal with for sleeping. It's always weird when either of us is traveling and the hotel bed is all tucked in, so the first thing I do is basically get the bottom corner as untucked as possible.
posted by Pandora Kouti at 11:34 AM on April 30, 2020 [5 favorites]

Officially, Twin and Full sizes are 75 inches long; Queen and King are 80 inches long. Cal King is 84". There are also Twin XL and Full XL which are 80 inches. So I suspect that some of you whose toes are hanging over the edge or crowding the footboard have got the 75-inch sizes.
posted by beagle at 11:35 AM on April 30, 2020

A few years ago, my sister and I were changing the bed for an elderly aunt. She just about went ballistic when we started to tuck the flat sheet in, because that would trap her feet. It was a revelation! Now I don't tuck my flat sheet in either. It's much more comfortable (even for this life-long short person), and also reminds me of her when I make up my bed. Double win.
posted by kate4914 at 11:36 AM on April 30, 2020 [5 favorites]

My brother is 6'4" and has always been tall. This has plagued him his entire life. One of his first actions as a financially solvent adult was to buy a california king, which he sleeps on diagonally. He also has never used a bed frame with a footboard--always a platform edge so he can dangle his feet off the end. (He tucks his sheets, but loose so there's some muffin-top configuration going on.)

This is not an answer as to "why" but a counter to people telling you you must just sleep weird or some other kind of nonsense. I'm only 5'7" and sleep in a queen and depending on if I want my arms under my pillow or not, it's too short.
posted by phunniemee at 11:39 AM on April 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

I always find it frustrating when I arrive at a hotel and have to untuck sheets - tucked in sheets really reduce legroom as it were
posted by koahiatamadl at 11:43 AM on April 30, 2020 [2 favorites]

I'm 5'8" and I would never buy a bed with a footboard or have tucked-in sheets at the foot of the bed for exactly this reason; my poor squished feet! I sleep on my stomach and my feet kick off the end of the bed and it works well enough on a king-size mattress. But I do secretly think a California King must be the height of bed luxury.
posted by Stacey at 11:45 AM on April 30, 2020 [4 favorites]

I agree with you that I think most mattresses could stand to be a few inches longer; my own guess is that we standardized sizes when most humans were shorter and now it's hard to change because you don't buy everything from the same supplier (bedframe, bed, sheets, quilts, comforters, etc).

I just don't use a top sheet because tucking it in puts pressure on my feet that I don't like but not tucking it in means that it gets balled up immediately so I instead use either a quilt or a duvet with cover as my top layer and then regularly wash the quilt and/or cover with the fitted sheet. Sometimes I do intentionally sleep with my feet hanging off the end a bit as it seems to stop me from reflexively sleep-stretching into a calf muscle spasm. This means I'd never choose to have a footboard. I do occasionally sleep diagonally when I want to feel like I have lots of space, but then I live alone and that's an option for me.
posted by vegartanipla at 11:53 AM on April 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

why hasn't the mattress revolution happened yet?

It has. It's called the duvet. There's no top sheet.
posted by DarlingBri at 11:58 AM on April 30, 2020 [23 favorites]

I'm 6'1" and fit perfectly well in my queen bed. Nthing the idea that you have some non-standard sleep habits--for example, why would a pillow create "unusable" space? Your head goes there and is a not-insignificant part of your total height.
posted by Automocar at 12:07 PM on April 30, 2020 [3 favorites]

If you’re a front or side sleeper, hanging your foot from the end of the bed can help with plantar fasciitis by avoiding hyper extension of the foot. Unfortunately for me there’s a cat here that likes to play Freddy Krueger with exposed toes.
posted by sjswitzer at 12:33 PM on April 30, 2020

As to the why part of the question, I'd venture that it's because mattresses were (and still kinda are, really) traditionally pretty expensive, and so they're made just big enough for the average person to tolerate. Extra height would mean extra cost that the average person wouldn't use, so the market doesn't produce them that way. Except in the case of the extra-long twin and California king, which are the only two standard-ish mattress sizes that are longer.
posted by Kadin2048 at 12:37 PM on April 30, 2020 [3 favorites]

I'm 6'2 and have to hang my feet off the bed. Funny enough, when my partner and I started dating, their bed had a footboard; one of our very first "discussions" was that I could not sleep in their bed so long as it was there.

We now have a queen mattress and no footboard and my feet still dangle off the end, which is cool with me because I run warm anyway.
posted by General Malaise at 12:38 PM on April 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

We have a queen mattress, which is too short, but is far better than the times I've had to sleep on a full. The extra long beds in the college dorms were great, though only really workable for sleeping more than one person if you were wanting to be in complete, full-body contact all night long (which at that age I saw as a plus, my opinion would be different now as an insomniac). Someday I'll have a California king; it will be nice to stretch out without having feet overhanging the edge.
posted by Dip Flash at 12:53 PM on April 30, 2020

I'm 5'2" and have been told I sleep like a monster. My ideal position is face down, feet hooked over the bottom edge of the bed, arms stretched above my head with the tips of my fingers over the top edge. My body is the perfect length for this.

My most-frequent sleeping companion is 6'2" and has no issues with the length of the mattress. He sleeps like a normal human.
posted by elvissa at 12:56 PM on April 30, 2020 [9 favorites]

I'm just a little taller than you and sometimes find my feet near the bottom, but I often switch between using a pillow and not many times throughout the night. When I don't use it I put my head directly on the mattress below the pillow, so the pillow takes up considerable space by the headboard. I think as I switch back and forth the pillow scoots down. When my feet get too close I always realize my pillow is way below my headboard and my head is below my pillow so I scoot it all up.

I suspect taller people don't move around as much or just push the pillow to the side if they don't use it, vs sleeping below it.
posted by sillysally at 12:58 PM on April 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

I've always heard people say that California Kings are longer, as Kadin2048 says above, but every time I look it up, they are wider but actually shorter than regular kings (and shorter than queens, which are the same length as kings). I think this is a wide misconception (or there is a conspiracy in my computer skewing all the google results.)

Edit: I AM WRONG I was misremembering that the person I always disagree with thinks they are wider, when they are actually longer but less wide!
posted by sillysally at 1:01 PM on April 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

A sufficiently tall box spring/foundation will lift the top of the mattress above the footboard. Though you may require stairs to get into/out of bed.
posted by Huffy Puffy at 1:01 PM on April 30, 2020

In many cases, if you're going to make beds bigger, you're going to have to also make bedrooms bigger. In a lot of the UK housing stock at least, bedrooms just aren't really big enough for an extra foot on the end of the bed.

Also - OMG there are people who sleep with sheets tucked in? How does it not hurt your feet/make you feel like you've been pinned to the bed? I assumed everyone rolled their eyes in frustration when they turned up at hotels with 100% tucked in sheets and had to go round and yank the bloody things out so they could fit inside the bed.

Anyhow. That's your problem right there, I'd say. Surely if you're lying on your back, that downward curvature from toes to end of the bed shortens the usable bed space by about a foot?

Duvet all the way (European style ie. no top sheet under the duvet).
posted by penguin pie at 1:34 PM on April 30, 2020 [3 favorites]

So glad to know I'm not the only one who can't stand tucked in sheets or footboards! I'm only 5'5" but I find "full size" beds too small, most especially if I'm sharing it with someone else. I also like to hang my feet over the edge sleeping on my side and I really like the fact that my memory foam mattress doesn't have any edge piping or whatever it's called.

Have you ever been in old castles in Europe, or even in Colonial Era restored house museums in the US? Those beds were small! Those people were smaller on average than we are.
posted by mareli at 1:47 PM on April 30, 2020 [2 favorites]

The small beds in old palaces were usually used to sleep in much more upright, with lots and lots of pillows, in an almost sitting position. I haven't heard many people here in Europe complaining about too-short mattresses (standard is 200cm, so 79 inches), so I suspect the sensible choice of duvets rather than strange sheet configurations makes all the difference.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 2:09 PM on April 30, 2020 [3 favorites]

You can go to a mattress maker in your area and have them build you a custom size. Get an extended full size mattress, if that suits you, for not a whole not more than a standard size off the shelf. Your next task is to get a frame and sheets that suit your new mattress.
posted by Midnight Skulker at 2:14 PM on April 30, 2020 [2 favorites]

This is partially a function of your headboard and your pillow.

If the pillow is up at the very top of your bed, either kept in place by a headboard or wall, then an average adult will have plenty of length when lying with head upon that pillow.

However, if the head of the bed isn't against a headboard or wall, then you have to keep your pillow well down from the top of the bed for fear of it slipping off onto the floor. I have one bed like this in my house, and it feels much too short to me, although I'm not even as tall as you.
posted by fingersandtoes at 2:15 PM on April 30, 2020 [2 favorites]

OMG there are people who sleep with sheets tucked in? How does it not hurt your feet/make you feel like you've been pinned to the bed?

Tucked in sheets help solve problems of heat. They are warmer, you don’t lose the warmer air from the blankets. I love tucked in sheets, but I’m short and have had more years where I couldn’t turn up the heat than years where I felt trapped. So it’s just cozy and warm. My husband is tall so we can’t tuck sheets and I find my feet are always cold now.

I think the standardization problem is the cause though, few enough tall people to complain about it and they all learn fixes that involve things like not having headboards or not tucking sheets.
posted by corb at 2:59 PM on April 30, 2020 [4 favorites]

elvissa, your comment made me snort and then full-on guffaw. I am imagining a furry shorter Sully (Monsters Inc) with fingers and toes hooked over the top and bottom edges of the mattress.

I am 10 inches shorter than my partner. When I wake up, one of the cats is usually attacking their toes peeping out past the edge of the bed, while mine are safely under the duvet, nowhere close to the edge.
posted by spamandkimchi at 3:03 PM on April 30, 2020 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: Wow. It was fascinating to hear everybody's sleep habits. I feel like I just stepped out of the Matrix—or out of the wardrobe (bedroom furniture literary allusions seem more apropos). My unquestioned assumption was that most people like tucked-in sheets and hate their feet sticking out. Looks like I may be in the minority!

I'm a side sleeper for the most part, and short like I said, so this rarely comes up. But I'm on my back to read, which is the only time I notice it ... I mean, it's not like I lie awake in bed at night thinking about it.

Tucked-in sheets keep me cozy (I live in Maine) and I can't stand sheets/covers/duvets moving around much bc mild OCD/sensory issues (tags and seams in clothing sometimes bother me a bit too). It sounds like I manage to 'get away with it' mainly because of my height.

So I guess I'll count myself lucky. Good night, and good luck!
posted by Text TK at 9:04 PM on April 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

You can have it both ways! I hate having my feet stick out, but also hate tucked-in sheets. The solution is tucking under the sides and bottom of your duvet. You can do this with your feet if you don't want to make a bed. There's not the same tension on your feet as if you tuck in the sheets, but you still don't get draftiness.
posted by batter_my_heart at 11:15 PM on April 30, 2020 [1 favorite]

Mattresses as standard mass produced products only date to the late 19th century. Queen and King size beds were standardized in the 40s-60s. The California King's history is murkier, see here vs here. As for why they are so short, they aren't: they are designed to accomodate most people. Average height for an American man has gone from 170cm to 180cm (5'7" to 5'11") in the last century. Most American beds are at least 6'8" long, that leaves plenty of room.

That's some data. For my own Chatfilter contribution I'm 6'5" and have slept on queen size beds (6'8") most of my life. It's never been a big problem, but I'm just sure to sleep all the way at the head of the bed and usually my legs are bent a little bit. I mean, when was the last time you stretched out fully straight on a bed?
posted by Nelson at 8:13 AM on May 1, 2020 [1 favorite]

I'm 5'11'' and stretch fully out on a queen pretty much every night. I also tuck in my sheet and have never had an issue with it. I am very curious about the size of OP's bed.
posted by aspersioncast at 11:13 PM on May 1, 2020