When siblings born not too far apart reach a certain age, the question often arises: Should they have bunk beds?

I first thought about bunk beds for my boys a year or so ago, but decided it would be bedtime hara kiri. Images of them jumping off the ladder and diving from the top onto the hard, marble floor quickly filled my mind.

Twelve months later, at 4 and 7, I revisited the idea, because the lovely Dubai Mum over at Dubai Mummy told me there was a sale at Kids’ Rooms with up to 75% off.

I’ll admit I also had an agenda. Years ago, on holidays in North Wales each year, my brother and I experienced the joys of wooden bunk beds with a rickety ladder and chicken-wire base. I’d take a torch up to the top, while my younger brother made a den below, and I distinctly remember wanting to go to bed so we could whisper in the dark (very clever, Mum).

Worth every dirham!

At Kids’ Rooms, they showed me some colourful bunk beds that matched the paint in the room, and before I knew it I was spending DH’s hard-earned cash on not just the beds, but on pirate duvets and cushions, a drawer to go underneath and a thick-pile rug that looked like it would make a good crash mat.

Delivery wasn’t smooth, of course. There was a whole day waiting at home, at the end of which they told us they’d meant the next day. And when the truck did arrive, they’d forgotten all the bedding and managed to knock over a post just outside our villa, leaving a pile of crumbled concrete behind.

But it was all worth it: the boys love the beds and so do I, especially because it means, after reading their stories, they no longer expect me to lie down with them until they fall asleep.

There was a moment’s hesitation when this dawned on them: “But Mummy, how will you take us to bed?” asked BB, the penny dropping.

“Oh, I don’t think I can darling. Mummies aren’t allowed on the ladder,” I replied, peering through the rail at his top bunk.

And he was okay with that.

That, dear readers, is progress.