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Tactical Daddy: Baby Gear For The Manly Man

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Marcus Melnick had been marketing police vests when his wife gave birth to their second child nearly six years ago.

As WBBM Newsradio's Regine Schlesinger reports, Melnick was getting ready to take his 2-year-old son to the hospital to visit. He grabbed his wife's diaper bag but thought it looked too much like a purse for a man to carry.

"I dumped her purse--it was disguised as a backpack but it really was a purse--onto the dining room table, and I sorted through the old receipts and the gum and the lipstick and the other stuff that you really don't need to parent," he said.

LISTEN: WBBM Newsradio's Regine Schlesinger Reports

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"And I started to put diapers in one pocket, wipes in another, a juice box in another."

Thus was born his product, The Tactical Daddy, billed as the dad's alternative to a diaper bag.

"My mother-in-law said, 'You should market that,'" said Melnick.

Melnick sells it on his website, tacticaldaddy.com. Among his best customers: "First-time grandmothers who want something for their son or their son-in-law at a shower."

And once the kids are out of diapers: "There are other uses for it. I mean it's the same as a photographer's vest. I went fishing a couple of weeks ago. I have one that I use for the outdoors when I go camping and fishing."

The Tactical Daddy, selling macho diaper vests for fathers, and Made In Chicago.

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