The Product: Diaper Pail

Unless you plan on running to the garage every time you change a diaper, than a diaper pail is a must have for new parents. There are several different models, some of which use regular garbage bags and others which require you to purchase their own refills.

Recommendation: Diaper Champ Review

While the Diaper Genie 2 is the clearly the market leader in terms of sales, it requires you to purchase proprietary bags, which run about $6 -$8 a pack. It’s a clever business model, but I am not sure that it makes a big difference in terms of the performance of the product and it's a big bummer if you run out of bags. The Diaper Champ uses regular garbage bags, making it much more economical over the long run and easy to use. It has a basic chamber mechanism, similar to a revolving door. You drop the (carefully folded up)diaper into the chamber and flip the handle and weight pushes it through while keeping a tight seal and then is ready to accept another diaper on the other side. When it's full, you simple pop the top off the top and pull out the bag and tie it up. You might also want to give it a few minutes to air out. At $30, the Diaper Champ is a no brainier, you may even want two of them, one for the baby's room and one for downstairs.

Devil's Advocate:

Because the diapers pass through the Diaper Champ’s “chamber” mechanism, make sure they are very well wrapped up before they go through as it is very difficult to clean out. A good rule of thumb is to have the little scented blue bags on hand for anything that has leaked out of the diaper.