Chatham man has a better way to get children to sleep

It’s no mystery that putting young children to sleep can be exhausting but Chatham resident, Brian Dwyre, father of three, has created a product that he believes will make it easier.

Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, Dwyre developed Kidioke Media, song books that play classic hits that also tell a story.

“When I was a little boy my dad would sing songs to me to like “Sweet Baby James,” by James Taylor and Willie Nelson songs and… I remember it gave me comfort as a kid and now I’m a father, and when they [my children] go to bed at night I sing them the same songs and they ask for them,” Brian Dwyre said. “That was the inspiration behind the books and the app that I have.”

The wheels started turning for Dwyre with his perspective of being a father and how he puts his children to bed each night, said Kimberly Dwyre, Brian’s wife.

Currently, Dwyre has three books completed that feature the songs: “My Girl,” by The Temptations, “Lullaby,” by Billy Joel, and “What a Wonderful World,” by Louis Armstrong, Brian Dwyre said.

The app has “My Girl,” and “What a Wonderful World,” available.

For the past two years, Dwyre has been coming home from work at night and working on Kidioke Media.

About 10 to 12 years ago, Dwyre’s father sold his wholesale office supplies business and “took a risk,” and invested everything he had into buying an imaging center for MRIs, cat-scans, x-rays, etc, in Deville, Brian Dwyre said.

Dwyre has been managing and marketing the Denville site for the past 10 years and the company has expanded to two more locations in Wayne and Fair Lawn.

So now, Dwyre has taken the same risk.

“I took a risk to create a book that tells a story -- music of today I am not a fan of at all, I feel like there’s no meaning with the songs that they are all empty -- and so I thought “What if I got the licenses to these songs and put them in books, to teach kids the songs I like and the not the music from today,’” Brian Dwyre said.

After hiring an attorney Dwyre has received the publishing and mastering rights to a lot of songs from Universal, Sony and others, he said.

He was able to “think of a way to put children to sleep besides singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” and other nursery rhymes,” Kimberly Dwyre said. “With songs that have meaning and songs that were important to our generation growing up.”

“The lyrics of the song are the actual text of the book and the illustrations act out the lyrics,” Brian Dwyre said.

Dwyre has also created an app “to keep up with the times.”

The app features a fully animated carton that goes along with the lyrics. Also, when one presses play, the camera on their iPhone or iPad will automatically reverse to face the parent and child looking at the app so that they can watch and record themselves singing along to the fully animated version. Brian Dwyre said.

“You can turn off the camera option completely and your child can go to bed by watching and singing along with it,” he said.

The app is available now and Dwyre hopes to have the books in stock within three months. Currently he is just doing pre-order sales as he has ordered 9,000 books, 3,000 of each one.

“I feel like there is an innumerable amount of songs out there I can use for my books and so what makes my product unique is that I’m appealing to the parent and child equally,” Brian Dwyre said.

Kimberly couldn’t be happier or prouder of his husband, she said.

“Every time I talk to other parents, we are constantly trying to find creative ways to get our children to go to sleep and sometimes it can be exhausting and this sort of sets the mood, it’s a bonding time for the parent and child,” Kimberly Dwyre said. “I really think other people are going to go wild over it.”

Each book is $19.99 and each song on the app is $4.99.

For more information Kidioke Media is on Facebook, “Kidioke Media,” as well online at http://www.kidiokemedia.com.