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LOS ANGELES — Michelle Rascon fervently wanted to free herself from all that plastic.

So it was time for the multicolored ExerSaucer to clutter some other parents' floor. So, too, the bouncy seat and the play mat that her two children didn't need anymore.

That was how she came to be parked outside a suburban warehouse on a muggy spring morning, unloading her children's leftovers.

Across the street at Babies 'R Us, the 23-pound saucer — with a hammock-like seat where parents can plop Junior to play with various gizmos while they tend to something else — retails for $119.95. Rascon, a part-time legal secretary, was hoping it would fetch $55 at a biannual kids' used-clothing and equipment sale that's half coffee klatch and half bargain-hunter's delight.

"My husband's like, 'Just get rid of it already,' " said Rascon, 32, describing the major spring cleaning that preceded her trip to the LA Kids Consignment Sale.

The Los Angeles mother was one of 275 people who hauled boxes full of used toys, clothes, breast pumps, games, highchairs, cribs and other items to the warehouse.

The 25,000 items offered for sale make it the largest such event in the Western United States and one of hundreds that have sprung up nationwide in the past five years to help parents divest themselves of the expensive doodads that seem to be absolutely indispensable to raising a child in the 21st century.

And there are plenty of buyers, eager to acquire the castoffs at a fraction of the original price.

In just the first year of life, it costs $6,655 to outfit a child and the child's room with brand-name products purchased at retail prices, according to a survey of 1,000 parents conducted by Denise and Alan Fields, who co-wrote "Baby Bargains," a shopping guide in its seventh edition.

Four years ago, the prices began to bother Kristin Nelson, a stay-at-home mother of two who couldn't find an affordable ExerSaucer for her now-5-year-old son. Scouring garage sales with an infant in tow was out. So was dealing with strangers on the Internet. So the former marketing executive started her own baby bazaar.

Since then, the sale has grown from three dozen friends and neighbors selling used kids' things in Nelson's driveway to a twice-yearly mega-event that fills a 6,000-square-foot hall. Come fall, she'll be moving to a 10,000-square-foot space to fit 375 sellers.

Nelson wouldn't discuss the profits from her recent sale but said her earnings had gone from "manicure money to gettingcloser-to-vacation money."

Fueling the boom in baby-gear resales is a more-than-doubling of annual U.S. retail sales of the gear, from $4 billion in 1995 to $8.9 billion in 2006, according to the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association. That doesn't include infant and children's clothes, which topped $17 billion in sales in 2005.

"Babies haven't changed at all. They are the same as they were in 1978, but what we know about them has changed dramatically — there's so much more research about how they develop," Alan Fields said.

This has led to an explosion in the number and types of baby products and a deepening desire by parents to make sure their child gets "the best." As a result, brand names such as Maclaren, Peg Perego and Petunia Pickle Bottom now command threedigit retail prices for strollers, highchairs — even diaper bags.

"Twenty years ago, no one really cared what brand your stroller was," Fields said. "Today, it's a status symbol."