Mid-sleepers or cabin beds as they are sometimes called, tend to not be as high as traditional bunk beds, but they still allow you to free up valuable space beneath the bed.

If your child has a small room and no play space downstairs, raising the bed a few feet off the ground can really grow the area they have within which to play. And, invest in a bed that doubles up as a Wendy House and yours will be the house everyone wants to play at.

Of course that space could also be used for extra storage too. Fill it with a cupboard, a toy box and book cases. 

Or you could even slip a pull out desk and chair under there, perfect for a slightly older child. 

New mums and dads are suckers. I know I was one. But when you only live in a little place, or if you're on a budget you need to distinguish between the necessary; and the nice, but not necessary. 

It's hard because every day something new hits the market that is cleverly advertised to make it appear to be a life changing must have. But you need to train yourself to question every purchase. Ask yourself, each time does this have a use that I couldn't achieve without it?  

Here is a list of things you don't need: 

• A moses basket, crib or any other bed that a baby will have grown out of by the time they can smile. Yes, newborns like to be cosy and wrapped up, but if they are swaddled effectively they won't know whether they are in a cot or a cradle. 

• There are so many ridiculously pointless toys being pushed at us too. People have spent time inventing products for tummy time, for example. Just put baby on her tummy in her cot or on a blanket and stick a rattle just out of her reach, that will give her just as good a work-out as any new fangled exercise contraption.

• I'm not advocating you follow my lead on this last point, because where health and safety is concerned you need to make your own judgements, but I didn't clutter up my worktops with a steriliser either. Breast pump attachments, dummies and bottles were just washed in the dishwasher. 

Have you bought any other products that turned out to be pointless to add to this list?

Sometimes loft beds try too hard, they are over designed and too much is packed into their little footprint. If you're furnishing a box room, a bed that sits atop a wardrobe, a desk, a chest of drawers and a book shelf is great, but if you have a little more space than this, look for a loft bed that is allowed to breathe a little. This Oliver Furniture luxury high loft bed in white and oak from Cuckooland is our favourite loft bed design to date. 

It comes with two cute benches with open shelving beneath, ideal for books and games; and, you can slip a little desk at one end for homework. Positioning the ladder at the side makes the 'ground' floor area so much easier to access and this, together with  the slatted sides, lead the eye further into the room too, which should make the whole area feel bigger. At £1,637 it should be built to last.

Before you buy a raised bed, check out our bunk bed buying guide here. It's full of hints and tips to buying the best bunk bed for your kids and their room

​Fed up with your hallway being cluttered up with bikes and scooters? It's time to stop tripping over those wheels by taking them off of the floor and on to your walls, perhaps even on to the kids' bedroom walls.

This may look like trophy bull sculpture, and indeed it is; but it's also a bike rack. Its colourful plastic outer layer conceals a tough solid steel frame that can be afixed to most masonry, timber and brick walls. When the bike is at home it can masquerade as a piece of modern art hung up on this. When it's out, you are left with a little contemporary sculpture.

Kids' scooters can be taken out of harm's way off the floor too. Scooterpeg will grab hold of the end of the scooter handle and keep it suspended in the air. A bargain at under a tenner too. 

You normally have to choose between one or the other: a bed with a pull out trundle bed beneath to be slid open for sleepovers; or, a bed with storage. Noa & Nani has realised how important both are; and, this one, provides the two options.

The row of drawers on the top are part of a facia that conceals the trundle bed .

The bottom row of drawers is actually three separate storage drawers, perfect for clothes, toys or books. 

​This is the Loki bed, ideal for kids' rooms or guest rooms.

Our favourite mid-sleeper beds

As you know if you've read All the Things You Don't Need For A Newborn, babies don't need as much clobber as you might think if you gorged on baby magazines for an afternoon. But one of the things that is useful, especially if you suffer from backache, is a waist-height, nappy-changing area.

Silver Cross's Soho nursery furniture set includes a patented changer unit. Here it is shown folded away, but this tiny table top pops out and expands into a reasonably roomy changing area. Underneath, there are three deep storage drawers, whilst the wardrobe features adjustable shelving and hanging space, which can grow with your child. It doesn't look like nursery furniture either, so, when baby's ready for school, he or she won't be able to claim it's babyish. There is also a matching Soho cotbed, shown in cot formation here. 

.How to create a room that will grow with your child.

Whether you agree with it or not, children are barely out of reception class before they are coming out of school with homework. There is nothing wrong with doing it on the kitchen table, but if you can squeeze in a desk they can call their own, here are some of our favourites:

If you want a desk that will take your child from finger-painting to algebra, look for a timeless piece that doesn't have a childlike quality. 

And even when space is really tight, you may be able to squeeze a drop down desk in.

Or go up with a high sleeper bed with a desk below it. Or sneak a little vintage flip-top school desk into a hallway or landing or the corner of the bedroom. Check out the desk and chair set I picked up for £34 on eBay here

And read on here for more on high sleepers and here for how to turn even the tiniest corner of your home into a study.

It's always difficult to buy for children who live in small homes. So many toys are big and clunky and worst of all ugly, and really need to be hidden away when not in use. So the OMY Design and Play range of colouring-in posters and placemats is perfect for tight spaces. My kids have had fun colouring in their London poster, shown above, and when it's finished it will be framed for their bedroom wall.

As well as the London cityscape you can get New York and Paris. The giant colouring rolls cost from £14.90, the Giant Colouring Poster costs £9.90 and the colouring placemats, which include 24 sheets of six different design themes are £13.90.


Order now from Stone Marketing and you might just be able to grab some in time for Christmas! 


Read on for more inspiration for festive finds for tiny toy boxes here

Okay, so this isn't strictly for a kids room, in fact it doesn't really fit in any room, but when my kids were small our buggy spent a lot of time inside the house. Not having a porch or hallway, I'd wheel the baby straight into the kitchen from a walk and leave her there whilst she finished her nap. Now I had a car boot to store it in when not in use, but if you don't, your pushchair has to live with you, which is why this little number is great for those of us pushed for space.

Claiming to be the world's tiniest fold up pushchair, the Baby Zen YoYo 0+,  folds up so small you can fit it into a plane's overhead locker, useful if you travel a lot, but I guess this also means you could stow it in a chest by the front door, at the bottom of a wardrobe or maybe even under the sofa?

It weighs 6kg, which is pretty lightweight for a pushchair. It can take you from birth through to nursery or until your kid tips the scales past 15kg. It's passed the IATA standard for cabin luggage and it costs around £445 with various accessories.

At Don't Cramp Our Style, we champion products that are designed to  have multiple functions to extend their use. The Moodelli baby box does just that. It starts off as a crib, turns into a cot and then becomes a storage box. 

Baby can sleep in the easily transportable Moodelli baby box from birth to around two-years-old.

It then continues life as a storage box. The Moodelli baby box costs £695. 

For more toy storage ideas, click here