Organic mattresses: the Naturepedic review

Why this category earns the scrutiny

The topic of organic mattresses attracts strong opinions about what is safe, what is safer, and whether any of it is worth changing. However you come at it, it is an investment.

The bottom line is that babies spend much of their time sleeping, and the mattress is what they are in contact with the whole time. There is real merit in wanting to cut down on what they are breathing at that range, for that long, at that age.

Here is what a traditional baby mattress typically is: a vinyl (PVC) surface, often containing phthalates to keep it soft. Inside, polyurethane foam — a source of volatile organic compounds — which, being highly flammable, has historically been treated to meet federal mattress flammability standards. PBDEs were the flame-retardant compound class that drove concern here.

Choose a mattress made without those materials and the question closes rather than needing to be managed.

The tests

Naturepedic provided a No Compromise organic cotton crib mattress to run through a battery of tests. It passed all of them. Out of the box the first impression was strong — seams perfect, no nicks, and smooth and soft without that crinkly PVC feel.

The liquid test. The waterproofing is a food-grade polyethylene coating rather than vinyl. We poured leaky sippy cups directly onto the bare mattress, and it did not absorb or stain, and cleaned up easily. A few leaky-diaper tests followed, courtesy of a not-yet-potty-trained two-year-old, with the same result. (In normal use there is an organic mattress pad and cotton sheet on it for breathability; the sippy cup test was on the bare surface.)

The durability test. Babies are small, so the damage they do is minimal — but you want a mattress that survives the years after that. For the sake of science, our two-year-old was still in a crib. This meant a 30lb boy jumping like a wild banshee, for over a month. The older conventional mattress we had shunned was visibly taking a beating from the same activity. This one still looks new.

That was several years and two children ago, and it still looks new. Long-term durability is the part of a mattress review you cannot fake, and it is the strongest thing we can say here.

Is it worth it?

Babies and toddlers collect an enormous amount of sleep, and they are growing fast and are particularly sensitive to their environment. People have asked us for years which mattress we recommend, and this is it — with the honest caveat that it is expensive.

If you are going to splurge on one thing in a nursery, we think this is the strongest candidate on the list. It is also the only category where the product is pressed against a sleeping face for half of every day.

If an organic mattress is not in the budget

You have real options, and the first one is free:

Air it out first. Leave a new mattress outside or in a well-ventilated space before your baby sleeps on it. When it no longer smells of materials or plastic, bring it in. Off-gassing is heaviest when new, so time does a meaningful amount of work here at no cost.

Skip the extra pad. This mattress already has a waterproof surface, so it needs only a fitted crib sheet, which is CPSC's guidance for a baby's sleep space. If you want a washable layer anyway, use a thin, snug protector made for a crib. Our protector guide compares them.

And regardless of what you buy: firm, flat and bare. CPSC's "Bare is Best" is nothing but a fitted sheet in the crib, with no pillows or blankets. That is safe-sleep guidance rather than a chemical one, and it outranks everything else on this page.

Naturepedic also makes porta-crib mattresses, bassinet pads and changing pads if you want to carry the same standard across the room. Is it the only good option? Of course not — but it is the one we have used and report on here, as one parent's long-term experience.

Compare the other builds. Naturepedic is one of five ways a crib mattress is made. Our crib mattress guide compares them side by side, and the crib mattress cheat sheet ranks the picks we have read the maker's page for. Background on the chemistry: can mattresses be toxic? and VOC off-gassing.