Nectar Kids Mattress reviewed

The Nectar Kids Mattress is a reversible 16cm single, 90 x 190cm, built around 504 individually wrapped pocket springs in seven zones, with a foam side for children aged three to seven and a memory foam side for older children. At £199 it costs the same as Nectar’s cheapest adult single and carries the same 365-night trial.

Two sides for two ages

The idea is that you flip the mattress as your child grows. The layer list below comes from Nectar’s Kids Mattress product page:

Nectar’s text says the memory foam side is for children from seven, while its own product graphics say eight to twelve, so treat the switch-over as a range rather than a birthday. Nectar publishes no firmness rating for either side.

Why the spring core matters

Children spend far longer on a mattress than adults do. The children’s sleep service at Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust gives average needs of 10 to 13 hours for children aged three to five, including naps, and 9 to 12 hours for ages five to thirteen. That is a lot of hours on one surface, and it is why the core matters more than the cover here: 504 wrapped springs in seven zones give the Kids Mattress a sprung base rather than the plain foam slab of the cheapest children’s singles, and the coils let air move through it in a warm bedroom.

Bunk beds and cabin beds

At 16cm the Kids Mattress is slimmer than any Nectar adult mattress (25 to 28cm), which is useful on bunk and cabin beds where a deep mattress eats into the height of the safety rail. Check your bed maker’s stated maximum mattress depth before you order; that figure, not the mattress, decides what is safe on a raised bed.

Care, trial and warranty

The covers are washable, which counts for more on a child’s bed than any cooling claim. The National Bed Federation’s advice for two-sided mattresses is to alternate rotating and flipping weekly for the first three months, then monthly. Because flipping changes the feel here, rotate the Kids Mattress head to foot on the side that matches your child’s age instead. Delivery is free on a named day, the trial runs 365 nights and the Forever Warranty applies, as on Nectar’s adult mattresses. The single size is the main limitation: there is no small single or small double version.