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Melissa Burton still has a few weeks to go before she gives birth. And while the first-time mother is still scrambling to finish decorating the nursery, one important fixture has been settled: the fine art. A trio of whimsical farm animal paintings by Toronto artist Beth Moutrey are already hung on the neutral walls.

"We wanted a bit of colour," she says. "I didn't want to do Disney characters, but still something that would be fun and playful for the baby but something we liked too."

Forget Miami Basel - one of the hottest art markets these days is new parents. Superhero and cartoon prints just don't match the minimalist designer furniture that dominates the modern nursery, so visually conscious parents are buying original works to fit.

For artists, the baby business supplements their earnings and connects them with clients who may be commissioning art for the first time. For parents, it's a way to dip their toe into real art and expose Junior to the power of aesthetics at a young age. And Disney remains the anti-symbol.

"In the last two years, I've seen a huge rise in the number of people shopping for stuff that is not Disney," says Sara Fillmore, a co-owner of Toronto's Planet Kid, which stocks various artists' works at prices up to $500.

For Ms. Burton, the works of Ms. Moutrey, priced from $250 to $350 for a series, are sweet enough to denote a child's space, but could easily be hung elsewhere in the house. Though she and her husband are budding art collectors, this was the first art they had commissioned.

"They're fun, bright and colourful, but there's nothing about them that screams out 'baby,' " she says.

Artist Sherry Pribik says the popularity of her multimedia paintings of trucks, toys and other childhood classics is a response to a vacuum that existed when her children, now 11 and 14, were babies.

"When I think back, I resented having to buy that awful stuff," Ms. Pribik says. "Who wants that plastic furniture with teddy bears on it?"

While artists and parents say that paintings for children are more than chic decor, apart from playing identify-the-piglet or name-the-colours, does it make any real difference to a kid? Or is it just another big-ticket item to add to the already-crowded baby registry?

Ms. Moutrey, who showcases her work at Toronto's Baby on the Hip and online at Modernartforchildren.com, says the visceral impact of real art isn't lost on children.

"You can see the hand work," she says, adding that art for kids accounts for about half of her sales. "You might even see a fingerprint, a brushstroke. You can see it's original. A kid deserves that."

Planet Kid's Ms. Fillmore says real art in her six-year-old son Henry's room appears to have stemmed his interest in commercial fare.

A recent gift of second-hand goodies included a Spider-Man poster; Henry wasn't interested in putting it up.

"It's akin to not talking baby talk to him," she says.

For many parents, buying art for kids can be a baby step on the way to collecting art for themselves.

The nursery is seen as a low-pressure starting point.

"For their living room, they might have a thought about the impact of the piece: Is it a showstopper? Am I showcasing this in my living room?" says Toronto artist Sarah Merry. "They may put more pressure on themselves."

Still, artists and retailers say parents shouldn't throw out their aesthetic principles: Don't buy anything you don't love. Don't buy anything because you think it will appreciate in value. Pick it because it fits with your parenting vision, they say.

While Ms. Merry is known for her bright abstracts, she says a side business called Bumblegators, which creates lush murals for kids' rooms, now accounts for up to 70 per cent of her sales. Increasingly, parents are also buying her abstracts, priced up to $6,500, for those spaces, too.

Two Sarah Merry pieces marked the birth of Erin Wright's twins, Leo and Isabella, in 2005. Ms. Wright hopes the paintings have started their dialogue with art. Although commissioned for a nursery, the two yellow abstracts hang in the foyer of their villa in Dubai, where Ms. Wright and her family now live. When the kids grow up and move out, the paintings will go with them. For now, they are toddler talking points.

"They love the colour and contrasts," she says in an e-mail. "It's fun to just sit on the floor and look at the paintings and talk about what we see."