Child's Poseबालासन
Bālāsana — a beginner restorative pose that works the lower back, glutes.
2–5MINUTES HELD
One line on the timetable. Child's Pose is held 2–5 minutes, with the breath moving throughout — and it takes its place inside 6 of the practices posted on this site.
SOURCE·YogaPath sequence data — stay times as taught·one breath ≈ 5 s at an even pace·REVIEWED JUL 2026
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How to do Child's Pose
Read all of it before starting, and read the cautions further down before starting at all.
Kneel with the big toes touching and the knees as wide as is comfortable.
Place a folded blanket behind the knees if sitting back onto the heels pinches.
Sit the hips back towards the heels and walk the hands forward until the torso rests between the thighs.
Rest the forehead on the mat, on stacked fists, or on a block so the neck is fully supported.
Let the arms go heavy, either forward or back alongside the body, and breathe into the back ribs.
Hold: 2–5 minutes. Keep the breath moving throughout — if you are holding it, the pose is too much for today.
Muscles worked
Where the effort and the lengthening land. Primary groups do most of the work; secondary groups assist or are stretched.
What Child's Pose does
Described mechanically — what the movement does to muscle and joint. Not a list of conditions it treats, because a pose does not treat conditions.
- Puts the spine into a long supported rounding with the floor carrying the torso.
- Lengthens the muscles either side of the lower back with no effort from the practitioner.
- Directs the breath into the back of the ribcage, which the shape makes easy to feel.
Child's Pose is one of 21 restorative poses in this library and one of 88 poses rated beginner. Supported, low-effort poses held long, where the point is to stop working rather than to work.
Who should skip Child's Pose, or change it
- Knee injury or recent meniscus surgery — the deep knee fold is the limiting factor.
- Pregnancy: take the knees very wide so the belly hangs freely between the thighs.
- Ankle pain from the tops of the feet on the floor — roll a blanket under the ankles.
- Any position where the head is below the heart can feel uncomfortable with sinus pressure or a headache.
General information only — not medical advice. Some asanas are unsuitable during pregnancy, injury or specific conditions. Learn from a qualified teacher and stop if anything hurts. If you are pregnant, recovering from surgery or managing any health condition, ask your doctor before starting a practice, and learn the pose itself from a qualified teacher who can see you move.
Common mistakes in Child's Pose
What tends to go wrong, and the specific correction — not "engage your core".
MistakeForehead hovering above the floor so the neck has to hold the head up.
FixStack blocks or fists until the forehead has something solid to rest on.
MistakeHips floating well above the heels with the shape held by effort.
FixWedge a folded blanket between the calves and thighs so the hips have somewhere to land.
How the energy figure on a yoga timetable is reached
- Nobody has measured a single asana in a metabolic cart, so no per-pose figure is published here — not by this site and not by anyone.
- The pose is matched to the nearest style of practice in the 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities. Child's Pose sits at code 02170, yoga, Nadisodhana (seated, quiet practice), 2 MET.
- That MET value is put through the standard ACSM relationship for a stated reference adult of 70 kg.
- The result is the cost of a practice of that kind for as long as you practise — not the cost of holding this one shape.
- Scale it to yourself: the relationship is linear in body mass, so multiply by your own weight in kilograms and divide by 70.
kcal/min = MET × 3.5 × kg ÷ 200
= 2 × 3.5 × 70 ÷ 200
= 2.45 kcal per minute
The same practice, hour by hour
Read it the way you would read a timetable: pick the length of session you actually sit down for, and that is the figure.
| Time practising | 10 min | 20 min | 30 min | 45 min | 60 min |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calories | 25 | 49 | 74 | 110 | 147 |
SOURCE·2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities·code 02170 · 2 MET · 70 kg reference adult·REVIEWED JUL 2026
The whole activity dataset, including everything that is not yoga, is at BurnLab.
Asked before class
How do you do Child's Pose?
Kneel with the big toes touching and the knees as wide as is comfortable. Place a folded blanket behind the knees if sitting back onto the heels pinches. Sit the hips back towards the heels and walk the hands forward until the torso rests between the thighs. Rest the forehead on the mat, on stacked fists, or on a block so the neck is fully supported. Let the arms go heavy, either forward or back alongside the body, and breathe into the back ribs. Hold for 2–5 minutes.
What does Child's Pose work?
Primarily the lower back, glutes, with the hip adductors, quadriceps, ankles assisting or lengthening. In mechanical terms: puts the spine into a long supported rounding with the floor carrying the torso.
Who should not do Child's Pose?
Knee injury or recent meniscus surgery — the deep knee fold is the limiting factor. Pregnancy: take the knees very wide so the belly hangs freely between the thighs. Ankle pain from the tops of the feet on the floor — roll a blanket under the ankles. Any position where the head is below the heart can feel uncomfortable with sinus pressure or a headache. This is general information, not medical advice — if any of these apply to you, ask your doctor and learn the pose with a qualified teacher rather than from a page.
Is Child's Pose suitable for beginners?
Yes. Child's Pose is a beginner-level pose on this site, which means it is learnable in a first class and has a version that works for most bodies. The cautions above still apply.
How many calories does Child's Pose burn?
The honest answer is that nobody has measured a single asana. The 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities publishes MET values for styles of yoga, not for individual poses. Child's Pose sits closest to Compendium code 02170, yoga, Nadisodhana (seated, quiet practice), at 2 MET — about 74 kcal for 30 minutes of that kind of practice for a 70 kg adult. Holding one pose for a minute is a rounding error either way.
Sequences that use Child's Pose
The rest of the restorative poses on the wall
More restorative poses — first at the same level, then the rest of the family.
The pose photograph on this page is an AI-generated illustration of Geeta Patel. Geeta is a synthetic model: not a real teacher, not a real person, and nothing here is her opinion. It was checked against the alignment steps on this page before publishing, and it is not a record of anyone’s practice.
Asana names are traditional. Every step, benefit and caution on this page is written for YogaPath rather than reproduced from any book, studio or other library — see how this site is written and what it is written from. General information only — not medical advice. Some asanas are unsuitable during pregnancy, injury or specific conditions. Learn from a qualified teacher and stop if anything hurts.
SOURCE·Published asana references·asana names, alignment and cautions as taught·REVIEWED JUL 2026
