Anyone who sleeps predominantly on their stomach needs a lot of support to ensure that their back is kept straight throughout the night. And to find the Best Stomach Sleeper Mattress in the Tom's Guide Sleep Awards 2025, we sought out a bed that delivered firm full-body support without compromising on comfort.
We've tested over 120 beds in our ongoing quest to identify the best mattresses for all sleepers and budgets, and the Helix Dawn stands out as a mattress that's a perfect for for stomach sleepers, as evidenced in our Helix Dawn mattress review.
Helix Dawn: A firm winner
There's a lot about the Dawn that makes it worthy of this award. To start with, it's the firmest mattress in the Helix range, and because it's part of the brand's value-focused Core collection, it's also one of the cheapest.
It has a simple, no-frills design that's all about providing support for both stomach and back sleepers: a top layer of memory foam and a layer of latex foam-alternative to provide pressure relief, and two more layers of response foam delivering cushioning and support, and a layer of coils to cradle your body.
That might all sound like the makings of a soft mattress, but the use of dense foams means that the Helix Dawn is an incredibly firm bed. Helix rates it as an 8-9 out of 10 on the firmness scale and our testers agreed. It's not the firmest mattress on the market but it's close, and while it'll keep stomach sleepers comfortable and supported, side sleepers will struggle to rest comfortably on it.
While the Helix Dawn is our award-winning mattress for stomach sleepers, there are some strong alternatives for those who want a slightly different feel among this year's Black Friday mattress deals.
If firmness is your priority you can't get better than the flippable Plank Firm, which has two feels: firm and extra firm. However if you want more cushioning, the Helix Dusk Luxe is a premium pick with better pressure relief but a little less support.
The 11.5" Helix Dawn put in a strong performance in all of our tests. Our stomach-sleeping lead tester found that its firm foams held her spine straight when she slept on her front, while its gentle foams provided pressure relief in most positions. It should be no surprise, though, that it quickly proved to be less suitable for side sleeping.
We found that it did a particularly good job of providing support at the edges, which meant it's easy to sit and even lie right on the edge of the bed (although it was a little less impressive at the corners and the ends).
And, we were impressed by its motion isolation qualities, considering its lack of foam in comparison with more plush mattresses; very light sleepers might feel some motion transfer, but most people will be blissfully undisturbed by most movement on the bed.
The Dawn is also GREENGUARD Gold certified (meaning it emits low levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and you won't notice much off-gassing) and fiberglass-free. As with many mattresses, it features CertiPUR-US certified foams that are safer for your health, and the environment.
But wouldn't be fair to ignore downsides, and in the Helix Dawn's case, it's that temperature regulation was good but not perfect. It retained some heat during a hot weather spell, but if you're prone to experience night sweats or hot flashes there's an option to upgrade to its GlacioTex cooling cover.
It's also a well-priced, mid-range mattress, with a queen costing $1,332 MSRP. Regular Helix mattress sales typically see 20% off that price, but in the current Black Friday mattress sales you can use our code, TOMS27, to get 27% off. That means a queen is down to $972.36. With that, you'll also get free shipping, a 120-night trial and a limited lifetime warranty.
In general, the Helix Dawn proved to be an impressive firm mattress at a reasonable price, and we think it's the best stomach sleeper mattress you can buy right now.
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