Parents have many options when it comes to baby gear. In this episode of The Lab, Daddy Clay talks with Denise and Alan Fields, authors of "Baby Bargains", a book that helps new dads and moms navigate the world of baby products. They tell us about some of the trends they've seen including "green" and organic baby products. They also tell us if they've noticed an increase in participation by fathers in choosing items like baby monitors, car seats and more. Find out what the average cost of baby gear is for the first year. For more information, check out their web site: babybargains.com. DadLabs Ep. 735 is brought to you by BabyBjorn.

Daddy Clay: Today in The Lab, we're talking to Denise and Alan Fields, bestselling authors of "Baby Bargains". Come right back. We'll talk about macrotrends in the baby gear field. Denise, Alan, thank you so much for joining us. I know you're fresh off The Today Show, so now you're here for the serious show.
Alan Fields: That's right. Now we've gone bigger time.
Daddy Clay: So let's talk a little bit about what you're seeing out there. You're out there, you're looking at new products all the time. You're at the trade shows. What are the general terms that you're seeing in terms of baby gear today?
Alan: Well, one big trend is sort of the Whole Foods-ization of baby gear. Organic and green baby gear is a big trend. And there are lots of companies that are rolling out all natural crib mattresses and organic layette items for babies. That's a big change from even just a few years ago when there was maybe just a small number of companies.
Daddy Clay: This is a dad show. So, have you noticed, have the presence of fathers, men, are they in the marketplace? Is it impacting the baby gear field at all?
Denise Fields: Well, in fact, we actually see now almost half of our emails come from dads asking us questions. A lot of times they're really into the sort of technical aspects of gear. And they want to know, is this feature really gonna work for them? Is this really necessary item? So yeah, I think dads are much more involved in buying products than they used to be.
Alan: This is our 16th year in writing and researching about baby products in our and everything. And you know, when we first started out, it was more fashion driven. Baby gear wasn't as technical. Look at baby monitors for example. They were just kind of cutesy, pink and blue. But today, there's a lot of tech that drives a lot of products. And so what we see today are couples, both mom and dad are doing a lot of the research together, where maybe dad's job is a little bit of due diligence to check the safety or making sure that when a product claims it does these things, does it really do it.
Denise: I think there's a lot of pressure on parents, from other parents, and their parents, and manufacturers to get the latest this or the latest that. If you walk into a Baby's R Us and you look at the wall of just baby bottles, it can be. I know people who turn around and walk back out of the store because they're just overwhelmed.
Alan: The average cost of buying baby gear for the first year is about $7,000.
Daddy Clay: That's a staggering number.
Denise: And that doesn't include the doctor, saving for college, or child care.
Alan: That $7,000 figure is just baby gear. It's the crib, it's the car seat, the stroller, diapers, kind of the startup expenses of setting up a nursery. And sometimes all the new baby products out there is a good thing. For example, car seats today are much safer than they were 15 years ago. And we have carseats now where kids can ride in a 5 point harness up to 70 pounds. Motor vehicle safety, much better. Even with the recession, there hasn't been much of a decline in baby products. I mean the price of diapers is creeping higher every year. It isn't dropping. It's kind of a double whammy.
Daddy Clay: It may sort of be good news for you because it makes it all the more important to do your due diligence, to do your research, and to find those bargains when you can. And you guys have got a new edition of the book coming out?
Alan: That's correct. The new 9th edition. It comes out shortly, in April. And as always, what we do is we write and review baby gear. And we talk about how to save money. And sometimes saving money on baby gear is not wasting money. Spending $400 on a high chair when a $150 one will do just fine. The secret to what we do is sort of our reader feedback. That's our secret good sauce there. We get a tremendous amount of emails. We have 2,000 posts a day on our message boards. And so what we do is cull all that reader feedback, and of course look at third party ratings from, car seats for example, from the government and other places and then try and pull that together and say, well okay, here's a selection of things that we think are actually performing well.
Daddy Clay: Baby Bargains might be the first purchase, first thing on your list for your baby shower. Great gift. Go out and get one if you don't have one. Baby Bargains, Denise and Alan Fields, thank you so much for joining us today. That's all for us here in The Lab.