Furniture, Wood and Cabinetry Finishing - Clear coat for painted dresser?

My wife recently repainted a very old plywood 3-drawer dresser for my daughters room. It looks great and matches the colors in the room perfectly. My only concern is that the paint is flat, and since my daughter is only 3, I'm afraid it will get marked up really easily (it's been 30 years since it's last paint job).

So, is there some sort of clear coating that can be brushed on the dresser to make it a little more mark-resistant?

You'd want to use polyurethane and best type would be water based or waterbourne as it does not yellow with age.If oil based paint was used or if it's a dark shade then regular poly might be better but being flat sounds like latex so waterbourne is best.

This is the one time I'd advocate waterborn poly, as David did. Regular poly will yellow the crap out of it (ie, butt ugly).

There is also a clear protectant "clearcoat" type item that Lowes carries. You may have to look for it, but it's by American Tradition (I believe) and goes on just like laytex.

As far as which would be a better product, I can't say. I rarely use a waterborn finish so I can't testify to the durability of it. I can testify to the clear protectant, as I used it once on a job that the customer insisted we paint her entertainment center with the gallon of paint she had left over from painting her walls. She HAD to have a glaze job done on it (ie, stain it to make it look old and dirty) which requires a clearcoat. We managed to find this stuff and it's about as durable as semi-gloss laytex.