We took a quick break from our usual product review to offer some much-needed insight into a common household problem – bed sliding. It doesn’t matter if you have over-energized kiddos or giant dogs that love to jump up on your furniture, including your bed. You need a method to keep your bed in place instead of sliding on its feet or creeping closer and closer to the chilly window.
Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night to find your sheets in a heap on the floor? And maybe your box spring has moved a few inches since you went to sleep last night? We’ve been there before.
In fact, most of our review team has spent years trying everything from buying really expensive beds to putting rubber furniture slides under them or something else to prevent the bed from sliding around.
If you have a slippery surface, here are the best ways to solve this problem we have found so you can keep your bedroom in the same position whenever you finally get to rest your head after a long day of work.
Why You Want to Stop a Bed from Moving
Why is it important to stop a bed from moving? Mainly because your bed is heavy. Heavier than you might think.
Whenever your bed feet decide it’s a good time to shift around, it can cause damage by sliding around and getting stuck between outcroppings, windowsills, or even all the way to doorway thresholds.
Your bed moving could also be dangerous to your family. You never know when a kiddo jumping on the bed to wake you up in the morning will lead to an unwanted ER visit. To avoid this accident-inducing scenario, follow these tips for stopping your bed from slipping away.
10 Top Bed Slipping Solutions
1 – Get an Area Rug
Place an area rug under the bed legs. You’d be surprised at how well this works to prevent sliding in the bedroom.
This tip is most effective if you have a thicker area rug, as it will allow you to create friction between the bed and floor. However, if your area rug is too thin, then it will become more difficult for the bed feet to grip onto the rug and prevent sliding.
You should try positioning your area rug underneath the top of the bed more than the bottom. Most of the movement from a bed may come from the headboard area.
We’ve done a few area rug reviews in the past that would work well for this situation. That includes Ruggable and My Magic Carpet.
2 – Change the Way Your Bed is Positioned
Most Feng Shui enthusiasts will tell you to avoid placing your bed against a wall or corner of the room. You should have it as the bedroom’s focus with room for your spouse to get to their side easily. While this may be better for the flow, it may not prevent your bed from sliding all over your bedroom floor.
A better solution to stop your bed from sliding on the floor is to move the feet and orient the bed so it is against a wall so it can no longer be moved. This way, you don’t need any extra materials or items to stop the bed from sliding.
If there is any kind of heat source that gets hot enough near where your mattress sits (such as an attic vent), then this may cause your mattress to start sliding around more than usual when exposed directly underneath these elements.
Try moving it away from any such sources so they don’t cause further damage over time—especially if there’s one nearby already hurting things now.
This is also so your bed doesn’t cause any kind of fire hazard. A lot of urban apartments have heating elements along walls you would want to avoid.
3 – Secure Your Bed or Headboard to the Wall
If you are beset by a bed that slides, a simple solution is to secure your mattress pad or platform bed to the wall. This will prevent any unwanted movement, and it’s easy to do.
First, locate the studs in your wall—you’ll need to drill through them for this project. Use a stud finder or just eyeball it if necessary. Either way, make sure the anchors are directly over a stud, so they’ll be able to hold up your bed frame or headboard.
Next, use some long screws (longer than 3 inches) and screw them into those holes from behind where they can’t be seen. Take care not only when choosing screws but also when making pilot holes for them. If too much pressure is applied before drilling into drywall, there’s a chance that small pieces could break off and fall inside the wall cavity.
The best stud finder we have found is the Zircon MultiScanner A200 Stud finder. This is handy not only to stop your bed from sliding on the floor but for hanging pictures or working with any remodeling projects you may have in the future.
4 – Lift Your Bed with Risers
If your bed is sliding or low to the ground, you can place risers under each of the legs to lift it an inch or two off the floor. Risers are typically made from wood or metal, and they’re usually placed on top of a sheet of plywood for stability. This style is great for people who want basic solutions without spending too much money—you can buy risers at many home improvement stores for just a few dollars per pair.
This is ideal because it prevents your bed from sliding on the floor and adds a little elevation to your bed. It may not seem like much, but lifting your bed, a few inches can make it more comfortable to get on and off in the morning.
Bed risers also offer you more space for storage. You can pick up rubber bins from any store and suddenly have ample space for storing seasonal clothing, extra personal items, or even home exercise equipment like the Bowflex SelectTech 552 Dumbbells we recently reviewed.
You can pick up a 4 pack of bed risers for a pretty reasonable price on Amazon that often includes matting underneath to stop sliding on the floor.
5 – Remove or Change the Bed Legs
You can also remove the legs of the bed and use a frame. This will stop the bed from sliding and is easy to do if you’re handy.
If you don’t want to remove your bed, another option is to change the legs so they are longer, shorter, wider, or thinner than they currently are. You could even replace them with squarer or rounder ones if it makes sense for your room layout and style preferences.
The point is to find a solution that keeps your bed in a single location in your bedroom. There are many secondhand furniture stores or online resale shops that provide excellent resources for finding better feet for your bed.
6 – Think About Installing Carpet Flooring
You can also try installing carpet flooring. Carpet is a great way to help stop your bed from moving, but it’s not without its drawbacks.
It can be expensive, difficult to clean, and may not match the rest of your home decor. However, if you’re willing to put up with these downsides, then it could be exactly what you need!
Just make sure that the room where you want to install the carpet is large enough. Usually at least 10 x 10 feet in size so that there’s plenty of space for everyone who wants to lie down at nighttime.
We personally think an area rug is better, but when you want a good night’s sleep that doesn’t involve waking up on the other side of your bedroom because the bed slid whenever you tossed and turned, then grab a carpet!
7 – Buy Extra Strength Velcro Padding
You could get “regular” strength Velcro and just attach it to the bottom of your bed frame, but if you want something sturdier, get some extra strength Velcro or adhesive spray-on foam.
Velcro pads or velcro strips are a great option and a effective furniture stoppers because they attach well to laminate floors. That is the primary type of floor found in rental properties or recently flipped houses because it looks amazing and is relatively easy to install.
You want Velcro pads that will come off easily if you decide to move the bed to a different position around the bedroom. We like the strip pads the best to keep your bed in position.
8 – Install Rubber Feet
Rubber feet are a great and effective non-slip pad solution to stop your bed from sliding. They’re fairly simple to install, but there are some important things you need to know before attempting this method.
First, make sure that the rubber feet you purchase are not too high or low for your mattress and bed base —you don’t want them so high that they press into your bed and cause indentations or so soft (or hard) that they can easily be bent out of shape when pushing against them.
Second, be sure to double-check the size of your bed feet. There is a lot of variety in the rubber feet area, and they may not match up to the precise dimensions of your bed.
Again, these tend to have undersides that are excellent to stop sliding and may even match your bedroom décor. We like the Yupeak set of rubber bed stoppers.
9 – Pick Up Some Small Rubber Floor Pads
If your bed slides, it’s probably because the floor is hardwood or linoleum. If you have a carpeted room, this won’t be an issue.
However, anyone with a wooden floor should consider picking up some small rubber matting from Amazon or Home Depot (they’re also called “furniture sliders”, “grip feet” or “furniture pads”). These little guys will keep your bed from sliding around on the floor and will help distribute its weight evenly across its surface.
If you have a platform bed, these rubber pads will work great to help solve your sliding problem and can find them in different sizes.
10 – Give Caster Cups a Try
Caster cups are little plastic or metal discs with a ball bearing on the bottom. They’re placed under each leg of your bed to keep it from moving around, and they work well for this purpose.
The main reason to go with casters compared to rubber mats or anti-slide solutions is that they work well with wheeled bed frames. Unfortunately, most metal bed frames you get from furniture stores or yard sales have wheels, which doesn’t help the whole sliding issue.
A caster fits around the wheel and prevents it from moving on your floor.
Bonus: Use Floor Adhesive on Hardwood Floors
You can use floor adhesive to keep your bed from sliding if you have hardwood floors. Floor adhesives are an excellent choice for hardwood floors because they won’t leave any residue or damage the finish on your floor.
If you rent, you should ask your landlord or property manager before purchasing any hardwood floor adhesive. This solution works well to prevent your bed from sliding, but if you pick out the wrong product, it can also damage the floors.
Wrapping it Up
There are many ways to stop your bed from sliding; some of the best solutions are listed in this article. However, several other solutions could be used.
For example, another easy way is to us a piece of plywood that you can get from any hardware stores, you could place it underneath your bed so that it is not as slippery. You can also attach small rubber bumpers on the bottom side of each leg of your bed frame so they grip the floor better. This could be a great temporary solution while you continue to look for a longer term solution.
There’s nothing worse than getting a new mattress and having you bed slide all over the place. As we discussed, there are a number of solutions to solve your sliding mattress.
Your best solution will depend on your needs, budget, and personal preferences. We recommend that you try a few different solutions before settling on one. Most importantly, don’t give up! You can find an answer to this problem if you just keep trying different things until something works perfectly for your situation. Good luck!
Related:
Please note: As an Amazon affiliate, we may earn from qualifying purchases. This will not cost you anything.
