On Saturday I had a blitz in my bungalow; I really was ruthless and had a huge listing spree on Freecycle of items I no longer needed, used or wanted. The first room I tackled was the bedroom where my youngest granddaughter sleeps when she comes to stay, with a rather large extended family she acquires new toys and 'bits' at a very fast pace - resulting in both mine and my daughter's homes resembling a nursery at times.

While dismantling a mountain of soft toys I uncovered Hollie's Winnie the Pooh Bean Bag Chair, an item I have owned since she was six months old (which is too young to use it) and which hasn't been seen since the mountain began its formation some three months ago.

There are numerous Winne the Pooh bean bags and bean bag chairs available, this is the official Disney version which is a deep blue colour and covered with small pictures of Winnie and Piglet. There are also honey pots, bright yellow suns and trees to break up the Pooh Bear theme, all of which blend in beautifully together creating a delightful representation of 100-Acre Wood.

The outer cover is 100% cotton, making it a comfortable and cool seat for my granddaughter. This part is easily removed as there is a long and fairly wide zipper running along one of the bottom seams, cleverly Disney have attached a cloth tab at either end of the zipper so you can tuck the zip-pull into it and thereby avoid your little one opening the chair cover themselves. I believe there are two different closures available, indeed my niece owns the same bean bag chair for her son and hers features a strong Velcro opening instead of a zipper. Do check the underside of the cover should you require a specific closure as this information isn't readily available either online or on the product packaging.

The polystyrene beads are housed in a white mesh cover, this makes it very simple to remove the outer cover for washing and this inner cover has not failed me in almost three years of use. We haven't lost a single bead in all this time and an inspection on Saturday revealed no loose stitching or seams which look to be stretched beyond their limits.

When new the beads inside the chair were extremely densely packed, admittedly this meant the chair kept its shape well but it also meant that sitting on the seat of the chair did not look particularly comfortable. As time has gone on, however, the chair has become more squashy and now my granddaughter lounges on it in a similar fashion to a standard round bean bag. The shape remains very much 'chair like' but nowadays I've noticed that when my granddaughter sits on it she is able to slump in whatever position is most comfortable for her, rather than being forced to sit on it like a chair as was the case when it was new.

This is really a toddlers chair; children above, say, five years old will quite simply be too long (and dare I say too bulky) to comfortably sit in it. As I mentioned, my granddaughter has owned the bean bag chair from six months old, although she didn't begin using it with any regularity until she was perhaps one year old. At that time the beads were still tightly packed so it provided her with the support she needed, and luckily the beads have loosened as she grew so as she gradually needed less support the chair has grown with her.

The blue outer cover is machine washable, as this chair resides at my house I have washed it numerous times and it still looks as good as new with no fading. I have never tried to tumble dry it despite it being recommended on the label, I feel this would perhaps stretch the shape out of the fabric too much as you do really need to cover to be as tight a fit as possible in order to give the bean bag its distinctive chair appearance. Anyway, popping the cover over the line is a very easy process and an hour of dry weather and wind will dry it just as well as putting it in the tumble drier.

I completely recommend this bean bag chair. Despite being blue it is bright and sunny enough to be perfect whether you have a little boy or a little girl, most children adore Pooh Bear so I'm certain that should you purchase this for your home then your little one will love it - and Winnie the Pooh as a character is likely to delight your child for longer than fleeting favourite characters such as Dora and IgglePiggle.