Best Yoga Mats for Kids of 2021

This sweet little yoga mat for kids has a cute design on one side and a solid color on the other. There are five options with graphics, including birds, dinosaurs, and a rocket ship, and a semi-metallic, tri-color mermaid pattern.

Although the mat is made from PVC, which would be a negative for some people, it is free from harmful phthalates.

The mat can be spot cleaned with warm soapy water or even washed in the bath. Plus, because it will not absorb moisture, there’s no need to worry about trying to heave a soaking, heavy sponge from the tub.

At 3mm thick, it’s on the thinner end of the scale, but the quality is such that your child’s more likely to grow too big for this mat before it wears out and needs replacing.

The premium OmDashi children’s yoga mat is 6mm thick and has excellent grip, making it ideal for children who enjoy regular yoga practice. Meanwhile, the UV printing on one side shows poses to remind the less experienced what forms look like.

The OmDashi mat is made of thermoplastic elastomer (TPE), which is an umbrella term for a group of materials made with plastics and rubber. The exact mix of ingredients can vary, so the TPE label doesn’t tell you a great deal about what is in the mat.

However, TPE is less environmentally damaging than some other commonly used materials. So, while this isn’t a “green” product, it is slightly more eco-friendly.

The material of this mat is exceptionally easy to keep clean. All it took was a quick wipe with a damp cloth, and it was looking as good as new.

This highly affordable children’s yoga mat from YogaDirect comes in either blue with turtles, orange with smiling suns, or pink with butterflies design. Although it is thinner than some options, this is easily offset by the fact it’s more economical to buy two of these than one of some other options.

The high-tack sticky surface keeps the mat firmly in place on both hardwood and carpet, and the rounded corners also help to maintain its position.

While the mats are inexpensive, they do stand up well to plenty of use, and ours showed no signs of damage or wear after six months.

This yoga mat, pose cards, and storage bag combo is terrific for defining yoga practice as a fun activity over which your child has some control. We use the pose cards by letting our youngest child lay them out in the order she would like to perform the poses.

The cards show a cartoon yogi performing the pose, how to get into position, and the muscle groups that are targeted. They also have both the original Sanskrit name of the pose and the English translation, giving your child a feel for the history of yoga.

The mat is made from a polymer resin PVC and is labeled as being phthalate and latex-free, so it would be safe for a family with latex allergies to consider. It also weighs only 2.6 lbs, making it easy for a mini-yogi to roll and carry.

Both of the dual layers of this yoga mat from Yogi Junior have significant texturing, making it feel grippier and less inclined to slip than other mats. It also helps that both sides have substantial texturing, which is comfortable yet sticky enough to stay put.

The mat is made from TPE, and free from PVC, phthalates, latex, and BPA.

Yogi Junior says the mats are biodegradable, and their inks are eco-friendly. We’re not fans of general, unregulated claims such as eco-friendly, so we contacted them for more details. So far, we haven’t heard how the inks are eco-friendly or how long it takes for a mat to biodegrade.

This kid’s yoga mat from Bean Products is just over 3mm thick. Having said that, it showed no signs of wear after several months of use. That, balanced with the low price point, means it is still definitely a worthwhile option.

There are eleven designs to choose from, most of which are primary solid colors. However, there is a cute yoga posing panda and an emoji option that might appeal if plain colors don’t float your boat.

Having mucky kids myself, I was a fan of the fact that these mats are machine washable. While I wouldn’t make a habit of throwing it into the washing machine for every mark, it was a useful option when I discovered the dried-on yogurt.

A little narrower than most mats, this option is available in kids and adult sizes, making it great for encouraging little yogis who want to be just like the grown-ups. The accompanying poster and the placement of shapes on the mat help you to pose correctly.

The free app, instructional videos, and poster provide excellent value, but the app and games may encourage more screen time — which may be exactly what you’re trying to get away from.

However, on balance, it’s a good option for tweens who may be moving away from activities with parents. By connecting the amount of time they were allowed on the app with the amount of time they spent in poses, excess screen time wasn’t a problem.

This yoga mat is made of PVC, but it has a foamy texture to it that makes the mat feel more like a foam sleep roll for camping than a genuine yoga mat. Also, the top doesn’t have a textured surface, so there was higher slip potential with this one.

We found that this mat seems to take on dirt more readily than others. While we were able to wipe the dirt away with a damp cloth, we did have to do this more frequently to keep the mat clean, and who wants to clean things more often than they have to?

Think of this as an adequate yoga mat that could double as a sleeping roll or a spot for a quiet moment.

These kid’s yoga mats from Zuly come in four fun designs, with our favorite being the space option.

They have a dual-layer construction with a ribbed, organic rubber lower surface, and a top side of printed microfiber suede. The rubber is particularly grippy on all of the floor surfaces we tried, and we didn’t experience a single slip on the microfiber suede.

We like that the mats come with a coordinating carrying strap, which makes it easier for the kids to take the mat out and about, to a class, or round to a friend’s place.

The mat can be washed with a spray of warm soapy water or a soak in the bathtub, and then it has to be left outside to dry thoroughly.

Rather than a traditional roll-up and roll-out yoga mat, this example from Alex Active is a series of 24 interlocking tiles.

Each tile is roughly 6 inches square – depending on whether you measure at the base of the connectors or the tip. If you put the tiles together to form a mat the same as the packaging, the final yoga mat will be roughly 46.2 x 17.7 inches.

If you’re not too concerned about your child being able to practice yoga “properly,” then this mat is a good, flexible option for the under four years old set.

However, the tiles can sometimes come up from the floor, meaning if you are looking for a children’s yoga mat that is safe and supportive of genuine poses, this is not the mat you are looking for.