Allan Cohen, 27 and unmarried, knows more about babies than the average mother of five.

That's because Cohen runs Bellini, the exquisite children's furniture store on Miracle Mile. Get Cohen out on the floor and he'll filibuster the conversation with an entertaining monologue about the complete layette for the newborn, modular furniture, cribs that convert into youth beds, genuine Italian beechwood, pediatric mattresses, custom-made designs, non-allergenic bedding, breast feeding products and any other topic anyone with children would need to know.

Although not a parent himself, Cohen has been in the baby designer furniture business for a decade. A Long Island native, he attended culinary school in Charleston, S.C., before joining the family business in South Florida. The Cohen family owns the Gables, Aventura and Boca Raton Bellini locations.

But while his family business dots the i's and crosses the t's when it comes to furnishing children's rooms, Cohen does not give customers the hard sell on the entire set at once.

"We'd never tell new parents to buy the whole set right away," Cohen explained. "It's a modular system of furniture. We encourage parents to start with the basic two or three pieces and then build up from there as needed...We're just so confident that we have a quality product that people will come back for that we try not to be pushy."

The Bellini approach to children's furniture is timelessness. Once a customer buys a Bellini piece, it is likely to not only stay in the family for years, even decades, but to become part of an entire set of matching furniture.

"The whole concept of Bellini furniture," Cohen explained, "is that the parents don't have to go out and buy a whole new set of furniture when the child grows from the infant stage to the juvenile stage to the teen stage."

Furnishings such as cribs, beds, built-in changing tables, shelves, armoirs, dressers and end tables come in a variety of finishes, including natural, bleach, coffee and white. Beds and cribs come with convenient features such as built-in drawers.

But Bellini is not merely practical and durable. It is, as Cohen puts it, elegant. Customers can walk away with not only an entirely furnished room, but also a complete linen set--which includes pillow case, sheets, comforter, dust ruffle and bumpers---made of 100 percent hypoallergenic, Egyptian cotton, with changing table covers, lampshades and window treatments to match. Sets, which patrons can custom-design from Bellini's vast selection of fabrics and patterns, include patchwork, French window, floral, denim, nursery rhymes and calico.

Cohen will also commission his in-house artist to paint toy boxes, stepping stools, lamp posts and even walls to match linens and blinds.

"What we help the customer do is to design their own linen set using a unique combination of four or five fabrics," Cohen explained. "What we do behind the scenes to get the customer an entire room full of matching products is unbelievable."

In addition to style, Cohen and his staff pay close attention to safety and comfort. For instance, while most brand name cribs offer a mattress with only two or three different levels to accommodate the growth of the child, the Bellini crib has four levels to prevent growing children from pulling themselves up out of the crib and possibly falling.

"We allow the parent to customize the crib to fit the child and they'll have less problems with a child falling out of a Bellini crib than any other crib," he explained.

Cribs and beds are made from the finest wood by expert craftsmen at Bellini's factory in Italy. Edges are rounded to prevent accidents. Mattresses were designed by a team of pediatricians and chiropractors to best support the health and well-being of the growing child.

Customers can also find clothing, from a complete line of layette wear to baby wear for up to 24 months. The store also offer baby shower registry, strollers, high chairs, cordless video monitors for baby's room, mobiles and a variety of gifts and accessories. All products are certified by the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association.

Bellini stores have long been the place to get baby furniture among those who can afford it. South Florida stores have recently been shopping destinations for locals stars, such as blockbuster actors Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas, Latin crooner Julio Iglesias, Miss Peru, Miss Columbia, South and Central American political leaders, Miami Dolphins players Dan Marino and Keith Sims and Miami Heat player Alonso Mourning. Madonna recently visited the Manhattan store for her new addition to the family.

"Let's face it, it's the highest quality baby furniture there is," Cohen said, adding that cheap imitations of Bellini are "nowhere near the quality and specialized features" of the real thing.

But Bellini isn't just for babies. The company notes that purchasing its finely crafted furniture is an investment well into the child's young years, as cribs convert to day beds while toy shelves and changing tables become book shelves with hutches.

Cohen got his first set of Bellini furniture when going off to college.

"I still have it in my house today. It's lasted as long as we say it does. There's no other line of furniture designed to last as long as Bellini furniture," he said.

As the folks at Bellini put it, "The room toddlers have grown to love grows up with them."

Bellini is located at 50 Miracle Mile in Coral Gables. Store hours are Mon.-Sat. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. and Sun. noon-6 p.m. For information, call 460-9898.