Diaper Champ Crushes the Competition
Written: Nov 05 '09
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Product Rating:
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Pros: easy to use, easy to clean, uses any bag, holds a lot without stench, sturdy
Cons: loud thump of cylinder, useless footrest, harder to use for random garbage/wipes/lint
The Bottom Line: You can survive without a diaper pail, but if you choose to buy one, Diaper Champ is the reigning champion.
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| jeavinl's Full Review: Diaper Champ |
I bought a Diaper Champ about two years ago, right before my son was born. It was one of my last last-minute purchases while nesting. Fortunately, it wasn't a useless purchase.
I paid about $35 at Baby Depot for the Baby Trend Diaper Champ diaper disposal pail. It is widely available online and off and generally sells in the $30-40 range. I had read many reviews of many different style diaper pails and decided this one met my needs the best. For my daughter, I used a Safety 1st Odorless Diaper Pail, which was far from odorless and far from sturdy. Pieces of it broke off making it nothing more than a nuisance. So I was looking for something with few breakable pieces that had a unique design to contain odors longer. The Diaper Champ is that.
The Diaper Champ is a white rounded canister with a jutting handle. The trim on ours is blue but the Diaper Champ is also available in pink. It stands about 23 inches high but the space holding diapers only reaches about 14 inches high. The top part consists of a unique drum-and-barrel cover and handle system for dumping the diaper into the canister without fumes escaping. Basically there's a cylinder inside the cover part that slides up and down when the handle is flipped from side to side over the canister top. The cylinder pushes the folded diaper into the bottom of the can so there's no opening of the unit each time you throw one out. Less exposure to the air means less fumes escaping. There is a large blue button on one side of the Diaper Champ that releases the catch and flips opens the entire top cover so you can remove the full bag and put a clean one. The Diaper Champ does not use special bags. Any old kitchen bag will fit fine. You wrap it around an inner lip and push down on the top cover to snap it closed. There are no cartridges needed.
I've had and used the Diaper Champ for a little over two years. It has not broken. It holds a lot of diapers, especially if you wrap them up tight before you toss. It's hard to estimate, but easily 20 diapers, which for newborns means you'll be changing the bag on the third day, for older babies, one bag will last more like five days, thought you may want to change it sooner since solid foods bring more pungent diapers. I never let the diapers accumulate too long since the stench will start to get interesting and, though it won't really leak out on its own unless you leave it there for two weeks or there's something especially rancid, the scent is pungent when you open the top to throw away the bag. For the most part, the stench is contained until it's time to change bags. But then, do it outside or hold your nose. The canister does start to smell musty after a while and requires a little scrubbing and deodorizing from time to time. But nothing a little kitchen spray and Oust/Febreze can't handle.
The cylindrical drum dropping after the diaper is put through the top makes kind of a loud thump for middle-of-the-night changes. But it's not an annoying or very loud sound under normal changing times. There was an automatic-opening diaper pail I looked at before I bought this one that made an odd electronic sound that would've been horrible for middle-of-the-night changes.
There's a little foot piece sticking out of the bottom of the canister for holding it down so the whole canister doesn't move when you insert a diaper or open the top for changing bags. But the piece is so tiny! I don't understand why they made it so small. It sticks out one inch from the can, which is maybe deep enough for one of my toes.
The other thing to note is that you need to make sure you wrap the diaper well before throwing it inside the Diaper Champ. I'm not saying this for the odor factor, though that is a consideration. But the way the top is designed, it best accepts little balled-up packages, not random garbage or one baby wipe. Those items will just stay on the top of the drum. You need to press the button to open the top (as if you were going to change the bag) if you want to throw anything like that away. So make sure you use those Velcro diaper tabs to wrap the bundles up.
Though there is need for improvement, Diaper Champ seems to be the most cost-efficient, odor-preventing, easy to use diaper pail out there.
Recommended:
Yes
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