The best toddler pillows

The first-year rule comes before every pick on this page

The American Academy of Pediatrics’ safe-sleep guidance is to keep pillows, loose blankets, quilts, bumpers and soft toys out of an infant’s sleep space entirely: a firm, flat surface with a fitted sheet and nothing else. That is settled guidance, not a preference, and it applies for the whole first year regardless of what any pillow listing says.

After the first birthday the hard restriction lifts, and in practice most families introduce a small flat pillow somewhere between 18 months and two years - usually at the move out of the crib, because the crib is the sleep space the guidance is written about. Every pillow on this page that states an age states two years or above. Treat that as the floor, not the target.

Why 13 by 18 inches, and why loft is the real spec

A toddler pillow is 13 by 18 inches almost without exception, and it is not an arbitrary size - it is roughly a third of a standard pillow, proportioned to a head and a set of shoulders that are much smaller than an adult’s. Four of the five pillows here are exactly 13 by 18. The fifth, the MLILY, is 12 by 20 and is a kid’s pillow rather than a toddler’s, which is why it ranks fourth here despite being the most technically accomplished product on the page.

Loft - the height of the pillow - is the spec that decides whether it works. A toddler’s head sits much closer to the mattress than an adult’s because their shoulders are narrower, so a pillow that would be “thin” for an adult is a wedge for a two-year-old. The spread here runs from about 2.7 inches (ZPECC) to about 3.5 inches (KeaBabies), with the adjustable foam picks letting you set it yourself.

Nobody publishes loft as a headline number, which is why we have taken it from the listed product dimensions and said “approximately.” Treat the figures as a comparison between these five rather than a precise measurement of the pillow that arrives - a fiber pillow in particular is taller after a wash and shorter after six months.

How we ranked these

Published loft, taken from the listed dimensions. Lower is better for a two-year-old. The adjustable pillows score well here because setting the loft beats guessing it.

Certification, and what it actually covers. OEKO-TEX Standard 100 means the textile has been tested for harmful substances. CertiPUR-US is the equivalent for polyurethane foam. Organic Content Standard 100 verifies organic fiber content. The distinction that matters: most of these certifications apply to the cover, not the filling, and the listings are usually careful about that even when the product name is not. Where that is true, we say so.

Stated age range. Three of the five publish one. Two publish nothing. On a product used by children between two and five - the exact window where a pillow goes from unnecessary to necessary - that silence is a real mark against a listing.

Washability, and what can be washed. Fiber pillows go in the machine whole. Foam pillows do not: you get a washable cover and a spot-clean insert. That is a bigger deal on a child’s pillow than on an adult’s, for reasons every parent can picture.

Value against what you get. A pillow with a case included is worth several dollars more than one without, because you need two cases from day one and you will wash one of them twice a week.

Fiber or foam: the trade is washability against shape

Fiber fill - the KeaBabies, ZPECC and Babebay picks - goes in the washing machine as a whole pillow and comes out the same shape, which is the single most useful property a child’s pillow can have. The cost is longevity: fiber compresses, and a fiber pillow washed every few weeks is noticeably flatter inside a year. At these prices that is a replaceable item rather than a problem.

Memory foam - the ATTABABY and MLILY picks - keeps its loft for years and cannot be washed. You wash the cover and the inner cover and you spot-clean the foam, and if something soaks through, you are in trouble. Foam also buys you the one thing fiber cannot: a genuinely adjustable height, which turns a two-year purchase into a four-year one.

Our pick order reflects a judgment rather than a score: for a child’s first pillow, washability wins. By about five or six, when accidents are rarer and the child is on a twin, adjustable foam is the better buy - which is also the point at which a 12-by-20 pillow stops being too big.

What the certifications mean, and where they stop

This is the detail most worth understanding before you spend money, because it is where the category is least honest by omission.

OEKO-TEX Standard 100 tests a textile for harmful substances. On a toddler pillow it is almost always applied to the woven cover or the pillowcase. That is not a trivial certification - the cover is the layer against the child’s face all night - but it says nothing about what is inside.

CertiPUR-US applies to the foam, covering emissions, content and durability. A pillow carrying both CertiPUR-US on the foam and OEKO-TEX on the cover - as the ATTABABY does - is the only configuration here where both layers are independently tested.

Organic Content Standard 100 verifies that a fabric contains the organic fiber it claims. The ZPECC carries it alongside OEKO-TEX, both on the pillowcase.

And then there is the Babebay, which carries none of these, publishes no fill material and no fill weight, and spends four of its five listing bullets on the pattern. It is a perfectly serviceable cheap pillow and we have kept it on the page honestly - but on bedding a child breathes into for ten hours a night, we treat an absence of information as a finding rather than a neutral.

Sizing the pillowcase, and the sheets under it

A toddler pillowcase is about 14 by 19 inches - slightly larger than the pillow, which is what you want. A standard adult pillowcase on a 13-by-18 pillow leaves loose fabric a small child can get a hand and then a face into, so buy the right size rather than using a spare.

Three of the five picks here include a case. Two do not, and the replacement cases from the same brands are inexpensive. Buy two whichever route you take: one on the pillow, one in the cupboard, and a bedtime at 8pm rather than a wash cycle at 8pm.

While you are buying, our toddler sheets roundup covers the fitted sheet that goes under all of this, and the kids bedding sizes guide has every dimension in the category including pocket depths - the spec that decides whether a toddler fitted sheet stays on a crib mattress.

What we would not buy

An adult pillow folded in half. It is the most common improvisation and it is the worst option here: double the loft, loose fabric, and it will not stay folded.

A memory foam pillow for a two-year-old. Not because foam is unsafe - it is not - but because it cannot be washed, and the first two years of pillow ownership are the two years something is most likely to end up on it.

A weighted pillow or weighted blanket for a toddler. Weighted bedding is a separate product with its own considerations, and a child who cannot easily push it off should not be under one. Nothing on this page is weighted and that is deliberate.

Anything sold on the pattern alone. Every pillow in this category photographs well. The ones worth buying publish a size, a fill, a certification and an age - and the ones that publish none of those are competing on print.

And if the bed in question is a top bunk, the pillow is the easy part - the bedding is the problem. See bedding for a top bunk for the layer that keeps sliding over the guardrail.