I just assembled our new Diaper Champ, which replaces our Diaper Genie, which really started reeking and sucking. Stay tuned for a hands-on, nostrils-flared review, but I can feel confident making at least one prediction.
[Before that, the basics: each can has its own way to seal away odors. With the Genie, you push a tightly wrapped diaper into the top of a tubelike garbage bag, twist it, and turn the diaper into one link in a pungent sausage [which regularly unfurls when you then throw it out]. The Diaper Champ, on the other hand, uses a tumbling piston thing which works like an airlock to drop the diaper into a regular garbage bag. When you open the can, though, the whole pile will assault you.]
Anyway, I think the kid'll love it. I started playing with the tumbler thing straight out of the box; the kid will put toys, shoes, whatever's within reach, into this thing, and she'll have a blast watching it disappear. At that point, our days will be filled with having to fetch her stuff out of her smelly diaper pail.
Maybe I should start a pool to see how long it takes her to figure it out. [update: one day for the rotating handle, one day to discover the piston chute.]
[update #2: I may have to retitle this post "The Diaper Champ: So easy a child could use it, and she does, stuffing her shoes in it all day"]
Buy the Diaper Champ for $29.99 at Amazon [It looks so much smaller in the picture]
Previously: Please redesign the Diaper Genie
We've got the Diaper Champ, and a 9-month old daughter, whose poops aren't too smelly yet. The DC seems to do a good job, curious to see what others' opinions are. We bought it based on its use of regular trash bags, which come in handy at 2am when the damn thing is full and the only specialty store that sells Diaper Genie bags is 20 miles away.
We have the Diaper Dekkor, which is mediocre at best for smell containment.
Christiaan - what are you feeding that baby? We have an 8 month old whose poops have been pretty stinky for a few months now.
We used a diaper champ with my son (3yo now). It worked fine, but after about 2 years or for later kids you may want to get another one as the seals will start to wear down and the mechanism won't be as smooth.
We found that you can attach 1 or 2 stick-ups air fresheners to the sides of the dump mechanism on the inside. These help with the cloud-of-odor which is sometimes released when you open the thing to change the bag.
As long as you use white bags that aren't too thick it'll be pretty easy to scan the bag upon removal to see if there are any toys to fish out. This didn't happen as often as I feared it would.
Keep in mind that no diaper pail will be odor-free, unless it launches the diapers out of the room/house/yard.
I had heard that the Diaper Dekor was the pail to have. What's wrong with it? We've no kid yet, but soon. It's between the Champ and the Dekor I guess.
I have to say, I keep coming back to the low-tech solutions. We bought some cheap-o diaper pail at Target and just make a point of getting the poopy diapers out of the house as quickly as possible once they are surgically separated from the kid's tush. In a pinch, I seal them up in a plastic shopping bag until I can evacuate. I was turned off by the expense of the special bags for the Diaper Genie (although doesn't sound like the Champ has the same issue) and friends told me that none of it really mattered, your whole place will stink when the kid drops a load anyway (and that is definitely true).
We used the Plastic Grocery Bag Maneuver for poopy diapers (in conjunction with the Diaper Champ). The PGBM, in addition to cutting down on odors, prevents the dreaded poopy-diaper-falling-open-inside-of-the-diaper-champ-chute; you don't want this to happen. No matter how you slice it (ewe), poop will stink...but this did help a bit.
We started with a Genie, and I found the scent of the bags to be almost as much of an annoyance as the scent of the poo. The Champ has been pretty good to us. The key is to make sure you don't let the bag get too full. If you do, the last diaper starts to get stuck in the rotating mechanism, leading to delays in getting the most recent diaper down, and the danger of smears on the Champ, which will soon start to stink pretty bad. Also it makes it to be a tricky maneuver to unload the bag without releasing too much stink.
Isn't this usually the time that someone we've never seen post here before posts a message saying all parents should be required to use cloth diapers?
A cheap low-tech approach:
1. Save your plastic grocery bags
2. Hang one of them somewhere you don't go very often (maybe next to the garbage cans)
3. Put the diaper in the plastic grocery bag
4. When it gets full, put it in a garbage can and replace it with a new one.
It works for me, but maybe this is because we are on child #4 and we are just used to the smell? We always laugh inside when a new parent tells us how excited they are that they found the diaper genie -- we had one with our first child too. It's kind of a phase you go through I guess.
I've never posted here before, and I'm not about to suggest that all parents should be required to use cloth diapers (because we don't), but I just don't understand the need for a diaper genie/dekor/champ. The poop goes in the toilet and the diaper in the trash. If it's a particularly messy one I'll wrap it in a plastic bag, but we've never had a smell problem.
We have a Genie, but containing the semll of a week's worth of human excrement is an impossible task for any device. We simply segregate what goes in the genie and what doesn't. Poop diapers --> Wrap in plastic grocery bags that go outside immediately. Pee diapers --> In the Genie. The Genie can handle a couple of days of pee diapers with little problem. The poop diapers go straight into the outside trash.
Oh, got the Volo to complement the Mac 3. The Mac handles all outside (park/neighborhood) strolling and the Volo handles all inside (store/restaurant). The English verbiage in the manuals is the best, I can't wait for baby #2 so I can get the "carry cot" accessory for my "push cart".
Ok at 4 mo I think my son's butt stinks when he lets one go. However, the wife and I never got anything fancy for used diaper storage. We have a small bucket trashcan with a spring loaded lid. We just tap it on the latch and the lid springs up and we can drop everything in there and then we just close it up. I change the bag when it starts to smell in the room and we are doing this with out any fancy things. (Although I admit I was really thinking about a diaper genie but wife talked me out of it).
Before we switched to cloth at home we used the Diaper Champ (and it does still get occasional use.) I've found bying the Arm&Hammer scented trashbags, in conjunction with a roll of 4g scented trashbags for poopy diapers kept the smell away pretty good.
Also, just a side note: ALL poo is supposed to go in the toilet. Read the packaging on your next bag/box of disposibles. It says right on there that all solid said should be properly disposed of. The mountains of hermetically sealed poo in landfills is a disaster waiting to happen.
I've yet to meet anyone who like the genie. Playtex must do a very good job of marketing it to non-parents who don't know better and buy it as a gift.
I liked the Diaper Dekor but hated the harsh white color and the fact that it was the most expensive one. Then, like magic, I'm walking through Bed Bath and Beyond and what do I find but a nice, attractive taupe Diaper Dekor for 50% of the Buy Buy Baby price labeled the "Litter Champ." This is EXACTLY the same as the Diaper Dekor. It's made by the same company and uses the same inserts - it's just a better color and cheaper.
We've had the Champ since day 1; it was recommended in the "Baby Bargains" book, which I recommend highly BTW.
Anyway, it worked great for awhile, then we noticed the smell started getting bad. I'm not sure if it's the seals getting weaker, or if my 1-yr old is getting smellier. Probably the latter.
Although emptying the bag more often, before it's so full that the mechanism jams, is ideal, it ain't gonna happen in our household where picking up the phone to order dinner every night is a major hassle. So instead we keep a ragged beach towel draped over the top to keep the smell contained better.
The other key is to make sure the smelly diapers and associated wipes are wrapped in as tight a bundle as possible. This also helps with keeping the chute clean.
Also read the comments on Amazon for some other tips, like wiping down the insides with disinfectant wipes and spraying with Lysol when you change the bag.
We use a Diaper Champ that someone gave us. With 11 month old twins, we go through a fair number of diapers. The only modification we use is to seal poopy diapers inside of another small bag, like the ones newspapers come in, or the plastic bags in your grocery stores vegetable section. It really helps keep the smell down.
The wife and I use both the Dekor (upstairs) and the Champ (downstairs). I actually think the both have their ups/downs (pun intended). The Dekor doesn't get used as much, so we've never experienced a smell problem. I do like the quick easy pull/cut/tie method of changing bags. The Champ gets used LOTS. We did notice more of a smell there, but started using scented kitchen bags, and they solved the problem. The only downside to the Champ as far as I can tell is that the diapers tend to stack up in the middle, causing it to fill up faster than it should. We sometimes will open and redistribute the pile to get full use of the canister before emptying.
I am now imagining the hip shaking wiggle dance that I'd do with the Champ to get it to distribute the diapers more evenly. But I use cloth, so I just have a regular foot-pedal garbage pail, lined with a PUL bag that goes right in the wash with the diapers. I think you could probably use the Champ with cloth, though, anyway.
Wow, I haven't thought about diapers in awhile. I can't believe I'm going to have to care about them again in another few weeks.
We used the diaper champ with our first child after having a family member recommend it. It's terrific, but the seals will eventually wear out and it will start stinking. The vendor will send out replacement seals for free.
We've got one of these diaper champs, It works great but one problem is that the capacity is to small. I have to replace the bags twice a week because it loads up pretty fast.
I ended up buying a larger trash can and modifying the lid to fit the diaper champ chute. Got that idea from watching to much chopper shows.