Baby Trend Diaper Champ
by Baby Trend
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Our Price: $129.99 Category: Baby Product See more product details |
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Baby Products Reviews of Baby Trend Diaper Champ
Customer Review: Does NOT work
Summary: 1 Stars
I sincerely cannot believe how anybody will give a 5 stars to this product after using it for a week. It is a complete gimmick... My wife and I bought for it "felt" like a solid piece of equipment for containing odors. At first looks it seems well-constructed and pretty innovative about keeping an "airtight seal"...
On reality though: The mechanism fails to work on second use... Cloth diapers get stuck almost right away. The lid does not rotate as intended and you end up using not only both hands (instead of the advertised one-hand operation) but both feet as you struggle to contain the basin while removing the malfunctioning lid. My wife cannot even do this without my help as it takes some forceful maneuvering.
It is not a problem of manufacture, it is a problem of the intrinsic design. On careful inspection (I am trained as industrial designer) I realize that it is over-engineered, and adds too much complexity with a focus on emotional perception on first buyers rather than actual science... The mechanism will fail after the pail fills-up (in less than a week with 20-23 cloth diapers with aided manual compression). The gravity-driven drum does not have enough weight to compress diapers and these will push up... making it to jam when you try to rotate as advertised.
Bottom-line: DO NOT BUY IT... IT IS A BAD PRODUCT. I have not tested it on disposable diapers but I feel that it is a rather large waste of plastic. Simpler solutions will do much better.
***** 3-Month usage UPDATE *****
Yes, I have still tried to use this faulty product (since I paid for it, regretably so). SInce it was proven NOT to work with cloth diapers... I switched it as a trash bin for disposables (which we use on the baby on night time or on long trips). Not good either, as the stained diapers do touch the sliding drum, and they are prone to smear it while you sruggle with the cumbersome mechanism. So there, a bad product no matther how many chaces I gave it. Now, I have to figure out what to do with so much plastic taking space in the baby nursery.
Customer Review: Just average
Summary: 3 Stars
This diaper pail has both good and bad points and I'm really on the fence with how I feel about it. First the good points - I saw some other reviewers complain about the smell. Actually, the LACK of smell with this pail is its best feature. I have NEVER smelled this diaper pail even when it's been full to the brim and I can't say that for any other pail I've tried. The pail holds a lot and it can take a regular trash bag - no more buying those expensive liners. For those reasons I would say I'm satisfied with my purchase.
There are a couple of annoying aspects to the pail that make this a less than perfect product. For one thing - it's loud. When you turn the handle to allow the diaper to fall into the pail, the whole thing makes a loud clunk. For this reason we avoid turning the handle when the baby is sleeping. Then in the morning there's a pile of diapers needing to be put into the pail and of course they won't all fit at once - you have to take them out, open the pail, and toss them in. Not the worst thing ever but annoying in the middle of the night when you're not thinking.
The other problem? Individual wipes can't just be tossed in. They get caught in the mechanism. And my husband can't seem to remember this so I often find myself wiping some unpleasant substances that the wipe streaks onto the pail. It's ok to just lift it open and throw the wipe in but still a little annoying to have to do that. Oh and the last annoying feature is that when the bag is full it's really hard to pull out without tearing it. You have to remember to change the bag before it gets too crammed. That can be a hard thing to remember since this thing lets out no odor - so on that note, I guess we're back to full circle. No odor really is a plus in my book.
Customer Review: Disappointed and desperate
Summary: 1 Stars
We lucked out - we didn't use any special diaper pail for the first year of our daughter's life. Every now and again a diaper needed to be thrown into a small plastic bag before thrown away, but all of this "diaper pail nonsense" (or so we thought) didn't seem to affect us.
As our daughter turned 12 months and started to walk, her ability to get into the trash can in her room increased and we decided something self-contained would be the best option. So we read our reviews and did our research and opted for the Champ.
What we did not anticipate was within a couple of weeks of our purchase, our entire house beginning to smell like dirty diapers (when only weeks earlier there was no smell).
And we do change the pail a few times a week and I do spray *very* liberally with Lysol between each use - but we are knocked out by the odor of the pail as soon as we walk into our house. I've even started taking it out of our daughter's room at night because the thought of her sleeping in that odor is more than I can bear.
With normal daily use, the odor is especially prominent when you add a new diaper - it seems as though the chamber piece sort of holds onto the odor that has risen up inside it and when you flip the handle to add a new diaper, you are shot in the face with the most foul odor you could imagine!
As best I can imagine, everyone's suspician is true - this version of the Champ has cheap, thin plastic that absorbs the diaper odors and can never truly be cleaned between use.
So now we're back to square one. The Diaper Champ has knocked us out for the last time. Must we swallow our pride and buy a Genie?!? :(
Customer Review: Perfect after replacing top piece
Summary: 4 Stars
When I first got my Diaper Champ, I had problems similiar to other reviewers - the blue ring got stuck every time I flipped the lid over. I had to tuck the blue ring back into to it's slot to keep it from getting hung up as the mechanism swiveled around. It was very frustrating. I called the company I told them about my problem. I had no receipt because I got it for a shower present. They sent me a new replacement for the entire top of the Diaper Champ at no cost. Now it works perfectly. I gave the product four stars for the hassle of having a defective product initially. However, I was very pleased with the no questions asked customer service. I love that I can use shopping bags and don't have to buy special bags for it.
Update on 11/27/2010
I'm still using the same Diaper Champ and my son is now 2 1/2 years old. We also have a girl that is a little over one. Between the two of them, they produce some toxic diapers. We had a problem for a while with really bad odors coming from the pail. I was almost ready to retire the Diaper Champ. However, I started using Munchkin Arm and Hammer Nursery Fresheners, 5 Pack in the pail and the problem is completely solved. I tried straight up baking soda in the pail, but that didn't work. Not sure what is so magical about the Arm and Hammer discs. I use them in the kitchen garbage, too and it takes care of any funky odors there as well. I still highly recommend the Diaper Champ. What a great way to reuse all those Target bags.
Customer Review: Okay for the first 3 months, but smelly later on
Summary: 2 Stars
We purchased the Diaper Champ when our son was born, due to all the rave reviews, the fact that you just toss the diaper in and turn it, and that it uses our own bags. We also bought the Diaper Genie II for a second room so we could compare the two. For the first few months, the Champ was great. No noticeable smells and despite the difficulty removing a full bag, we appreciated the fact that we didn't have to shove the diaper into the unit or buy proprietary bags.
However, now our son is into formula and baby food. His diapers smell horribly bad, and now, so does his room. The Diaper Champ was fine for the newborn diapers, but now it cannot contain the smell, even with just a few smelly diapers. Further, the plunger now needs some coercing to get it to go all the way down, which means I have to shove my hand on it.
One reviewer had good luck with the Diaper Champ by cleaning and changing it out twice a week, but that for us defeats the whole purpose of the large container size and using our own bags.
Meanwhile, our Diaper Genie II has been fantastic at keeping in the stink, and we just invested in a Diaper Genie Elite which is a hands-free unit. Just press your foot on the lever and drop the diaper in. Yes you have to use Diaper Genie refills, but they contain the odor beautifully.
So if odor is a concern and you don't want to change and clean out your diaper pail twice a week, avoid the Diaper Champ. Once your baby starts on solids, you'll be glad you did.