Our 51st episode of Child Safety Source focuses on Tom Treanor, master child proofer. For new parents, child proofing your home is an essential task. The home can be quite dangerous for a little one. That’s where Tom comes in. He provides custom baby proofing services to residential homes in the New York area.
In each Child Safety Source episode, Life Saver Pool Fence’s president, Eric Lupton, interviews experts who dedicate their lives to helping keep our children safe. As you can guess, Tom Treanor has a lot to say about that subject.
Child Proof Your Home with Tom Treanor
Today’s guest, Tom Treanor, has over 10,000 hours of experience in baby proofing. He provides on-site consultations in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens for everything from small apartments to large day care centers. Thanks to his years of dedication, Tom holds the Advanced Certified Professional Childproofer designation from the International Association of Child Safety. Additionally, Tom’s knowledge extends beyond the home. When it comes to cars, he is also certified as a Child Passenger Safety Technician.
Finally, Tom has some hands-on personal experience with baby proofing. As a father of three sons, including a set of twins, he’s not just the president of his company; he’s also the customer.
Learn more about Tom’s story in our full video interview:
Please excuse the odd start to this episode. We had a technical problem at the beginning of the interview.
All Star Baby Proofing Service
As you learned from Tom Treanor in his conversation with Eric, he is the owner and operator of All Star Baby Proofing Service. Together with his team, Tom recognizes that every home and family is different. To that end, his staff works diligently to find solutions to trickier childproofing concerns.
Open since 1999, the company has been featured on New York’s local news channels. Furthermore, it was voted “Best Baby Proofer” by New York Magazine.
You can learn all about All Star Baby Proofing Service at its official website.
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Below is a direct transcript of the Child Safety Source interview with Tom Treanor from October 29th, 2018:
Eric Lupton: I talk to her as a master Childproof with 10,000 hours. I experience of{Inaudible} proofing residential homes in the New York area. He provides on-site consultations from everything from the small apartments to large daycare centers in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens. Tom Holds the advanced certified professional childproof a designation from the International Association of Child Safety and there’s also certified as a Child Passenger Safety Technician. Tom also has first-hand experience and the father to three sons, including a set of twins. Tom also full disclosure, sells and installs [inaudible] pool fences. He’s a customer of ours but not a big one. He mostly focuses on childproofing, but from time to time, he has been known to do a pool fence and he does a pretty good job. And he’s in New York, which I’m sure makes for some weird Childproofing adventures. So I’m sure he’ll be back momentarily and we’ll get the show on the road.
Tom Treanor: when it comes to safety and talk a little bit, we have a better connection now. So when it comes to safety and the twins, you know, one of the, I think the more interesting aspect of what I do related to that. And it’s probably, I would suggest that’s where we go for a little while at least.
Eric: Sure. So I read your little bio thing while you were gone, so what does it take to become a master child Proofer, what does that mean?
Tom: So through the International Association for Child Safety, a master, well they say a master is anybody who does something for over a thousand hours, I believe is
Eric: 10,000 hours,
Tom: 10,000 hours. So I certainly clips that by probably 100,000, if I’m wrong, you know, it’s 20 years in the business this year I think. I started when I was 33 and you know, while I’m already 53. So in my business, I’ve been in there since 1999 as a sole important of an all -star baby safety. But prior to that I’d worked in New York City under a baby {Safety}, say for a year.
Eric: Nice. What made you decide to do this?
Tom: It was a completely money. I just wanted to, I thought it was a great idea. A friend of mine originally gave me the idea, had this home childproof I was looking at starting a new business and you know, I’d have a background in auto collision, nightclub-dancer and bartender. And then I was looking for a retirement plan because no bartending and dancing is gonna kind of dangerous. It was getting dangerous. I was getting older and I was looking for something to start. And a friend of mine came up with the idea because he was having some childproof by the gentleman I ended up working for and learning the trade from {Inaudible} He said, “why don’t you do this?” And I said, “no, everybody’s gotta be doing it”. You know, because it’s such a great idea. Like who doesn’t want their kids safe?
Eric: Right?
Tom: It’s gotta be money, you know, there’s money generating things like kids and pets. You can’t go wrong in that industry unless you saw stuff that’s useless. But if there’s a product there, yeah, yeah. You know, so I thought about it for a little while and it was between that and florist. I always had an interest in opening up a florist. I thought it was a great idea. Somebody gave me that and through my career in auto body and collision I came pretty good locksmith, uh, breaking into cars because one of the things in the shop that we always used to do, is somebody would lock the keys in the car. And I had a lockout set so I learned how to pick cars and break into them to get the keys out. Completely legitimate. Nothing’s….
Eric: a sure, that’s how you get good at that.
Tom: yeah. And then when I was a doorman at a nightclub where I’ve worked at a pretty nice large nightclub on Long Island and there was at least once a week and somebody locked their keys in their car and I made some side money opening up their cars
Eric: Nice
Tom: When it came to starting a new business, I was thinking locksmith. I looked in the yellow pages and there was literally 30 or 40 pages locksmiths. And then I went through with Marion my friend had suggested it’s become a baby Proofer and I said, well, let’s see how many of those there are. And I couldn’t even find somebody. It was under a separate category. Baby proofing doesn’t even have a category at this time in the yellow pages.
Eric: right.
Tom: Baby proofing didn’t even have a category, it was under baby accessory retail. And I said, well, I don’t like competition. There’s only two baby proofers on Long Island at the current time. So I set my focus and while I went to work I learned the business. And then about a year later I launched All-Star Baby’s safety group.
Eric: How did the guy that you worked for take that, was he on board or was he upset?
Tom: Well, I mean, there was that was no, he was upset.
Eric: Yeah.
Tom: He was upset. He had trained me to run his business, but in my defense he owed me some money and I said, “You owe me money for the job I did for you”. And he said, “No, I already paid you”. And I said, “No you didn’t.” He said, “Yeah, I did”. I said,” well, I’m not going to work for somebody who doesn’t pay me”.
Eric: Right.
Tom: And that was, I would’ve been happy working for somebody for the rest of my life probably. I don’t know, I might’ve made that up, but I probably would’ve stayed a lot longer if he continued to pay me. Shortly after that funny story, he was doing some business in New York City still after I left the nights and weekends. And you know, I was talking to a client who said he took the money for the job and never came back and finish the job and his phone disconnected. She couldn’t reach him anymore. Now I had made him an offer to buy his business and he wanted a lot of money for it and all I was interested in the phone number and then there’s client tells me his phone number gotten disconnected. So I called up the New York telephone at the time, mob bell or whatever it was, and I inquired about his phone number and they said, “it’s available, do you want it?” Hooked it up. Phone started ringing the next day. It was a real positive thing for my business.
Eric: Yeah. I would help, I would imagine. Right. I mean, he’d been from,
Tom: People would call looking for a baby Safer, said, “I’m sorry that, you know, their phone’s been disconnected and I’m not sure, but you know, they might be on a business, so can I help you?”
Eric: Right. There you go. They start,
Tom: He was very mad after that
Eric: I can imagine. Yeah, I could see that happening, you know. But I mean, you know, I’ve never been upset with somebody for moving on to try and do something better than what I’m offering them, you know? I’ve had over the last 20 years of having employees, I’ve had plenty of that have gone off to do bigger and better things and you know, I don’t get upset about that, maybe if they started a pool Fence company maybe a different thing.
Tom: That’s where you go, wait a minute. Now happy I am for them to do something bigger and better. But the competition, they tell me it was good and it keeps me on my toes. I’ve had a few competitors over the years and there’s plenty of business for everybody. I like, you know, I think that I provide something different than my competitor.
Eric: So what do most people call you for?
Tom: Most people call me a gates are a big thing. Stairway Gates. I’d say that’s not too many people feel comfortable drilling into the walls, especially when they’re buying homes in the upwards of $800,000 here on Long Island. Brand new staircases. They tried to pressure me, doesn’t fit right. They’ve got moldings. So let’s call somebody out and have them take a look at this. One of the greater things now is that we don’t even have to go out and look. I just tell him, send me a picture.
Eric: Right? The picture most people call you for something specific like a baby gate or they call you because they want you to come look at their whole house?
Tom: We offer both, both types of services. If you want a consultation service, we offer that depending upon where you’re located. We do charge a fee for that. And then we have the {Inaudible} service where if you need a baby gate of cabinet lock and window guard and outlet cover, furniture strapped to the wall will come out and do whatever it is you want. But a consultation normally lasts about 90 minutes in a home and at the end we prepare an itemized estimate for all of the products that we sell, They’re available for your home and the price to install all those that at. Then we come back if you want.
Eric: And what are you looking for in those consultations?
Tom: Danger, child safety dangers. So one of the biggest things I believe is furniture, a lot of people, especially with all this stuff, it’s been on the news lately with furniture tippings they’re doing an anti-tip campaign still people, when I point to a small dresser, you know maybe three draws high, two or three banks, I say we want to put a furniture strap on that they go, oh, well there’s no way that kid is gonna move that.
Okay, well let me show you how that happens. You know, and you pull the drawers out and put five and 10 pounds of pressure on the top drawer, the whole, it’s tipping. And that’s the one thing that, you know, over the course of the 20 years, I’ve seen the most surprise and shock out of people not knowing that that can happen. So I think the most dangerous thing in the home is what you don’t know is dangerous. And everybody knows that the tall bookshelves, the standing lamps, the top of the stairs, the chemicals under the sink. A lot of people don’t want their kids in the toilet for other reasons and besides safety. So, but when it comes to that, that really is one of the major things that I would love to get out there, even with all the news stories about IKEA having the recalls and even though they have furniture straps on there, you would think what people know about this. But still today, I do consultations and they go down my, and I can never tip that. I’ll, okay, so let’s put a strap on that.
Eric: I wouldn’t expect your rate. I figured with all the educational stuff out there that, you know, that problem, it could have been solved. But it’s surprising to hear that. Not so much, you know?
Tom: Did you see the twin, the twin one?
Eric: No.
Tom: Oh my God. That was…. I think it was in Florida. It was last year around this time there was a baby monitor in the kid’s room hooked up recording. Maybe it was a nest, but the two twin boys were in their bedroom and the parents were so concerned they’d already empty down all of the draws for the dresser because I guess taking all this stuff out. Twins are terrible. I have to, and in case you didn’t know, one of the twins went climbing into the dresser and it was three drawers high, two wide and the dresser toppled on top of the twin. And literally the kid was under the dresser kicking. You could see his arms. It a horrific, horrific video while his twin brother was struggling to lift it off of him. Oh, you got to check this out.
Eric: Wow.
Tom: It went viral. Yeah. I mean it was on news. I actually did about two or three TV appearances in the city, CNBC, Fox News and Fox News calls me. I’ll, whenever something happens, we get to get a little time on whatever that morning show is with the host. But I got my twins on there too, but it was terrifying. It’s terrifying. And the sad part is that it is a simple fix. It’s a cheap and simple fix.
Eric: What was the outcome for the other twin, you know?
Tom: Oh, they’re good. Look good.
Eric: Okay. Yeah. I’m sorry. No, everybody will ask.
Tom: Sorry. I should, yeah, they wouldn’t have had it online if…..
Eric: Right, you would hope.
Tom: yeah, but that’s what made it so viral was it? The kid survived, but it was a horrific, no injuries. He made it out fine.
Eric: I didn’t see one. Maybe it’s that one where the twin, you know, successfully got ’em out. I don’t know if it’s that one, but I think I saw one similar to that, you know?
Tom: Yeah, well, he ended up wiggling out, but he was under that dresser for about two minutes. And I mean, when you’re a parent that’s horrifying.
Eric: Yeah.
Tom: So things like that, you know, when pool drownings and everything starts increasing and in sales and your phone calls. But you know, the other we do now as balconies to, and we’re using your product and I use, uh, having a lot of success. People love the pool fence on their balconies in New York City.
Eric: Just the Mesh, right?
Tom: Not just the Mesh.
Eric: We have the whole thing.
Tom: No. the wire the Pools on, the wire and we strapped that to the railings and pull it tight. Looks Beautiful.
Eric: Nice.
Tom: Yeah. It gives them a little extra height so the kids can’t grab the handrail and it isn’t, iron as you know it really does look beautiful.
Eric: I like to see if you’ve got a picture of that.
Tom: Of course.
Eric: Yeah. Send me a picture. I’d like to see that. That’d be cool.
Tom: Yeah. Yeah. We were using plexiglass, balconies in New York City or actually polycarbonate because we be acrylic cracks and polycarbonate was with standing it. But then, you know, we had the attachment problem cause the high wind and the high wind was blowing the cracking, not cracking, but stressing the attachment. So we moved to the cable attachments, but then somebody told me, an engineer said these railings were not designed to catch wind. They’re not designed to provide wind resistance. So you could potentially by attaching to solid power to this weekend, the structure on the concrete and the anchoring of the railings, making it more dangerous.
Eric: So rip the whole thing off.
Tom: Yeah. Well we’ll think about that, I went to the next best thing, which was, you know, a lifesaver pool fence, which is breathable and looks beautiful. It looks beautiful. Photos
Eric: Yeah, I’m pleased. I was thinking when my dad child proofed back in 1987, he used to do the whole, you know, crawl around in your hands and knees deal, you know, and now not anymore. You remember that?
Tom: So you can do that yourself, if you want to do that. Things you’re going to change tomorrow. I don’t think {Inaudible} everyday crawling on my hands and knees. If you have your nanny do that or you want to do that that’s fine. But to sort of speed things along. What I say is if it’s not specifically intended for a child and sold in the United States in say the past five years, don’t let that child play with it. That covers a lot of important things, such as a friends bringing stuff back from The Bahamas or from their vacation and Acapulco. And you know, we found this cute little island and here’s this little drum set or a little Tom Tom or a Kewpie doll with choke-able parts, things that haven’t passed the consumer product safety commission testing I’M not buying in America. I’m saying, well by an American, but it’s not American products. I don’t care where it came from. As long as it’s sold in America, you have a much greater chance of that product being safer.
It’s gone through testing. You know, I’m not saying made in America, I’m saying sold in America. We do have some pretty strict standards here. The other problem is, you know, recalls, you know, you should check every couple of months to make sure none of your toys had been there. But then people go into what about the Tupperware and what about the TV remote? And all of that stuff is also dangerous. You know one of the stories that we’ve heard is about the mom who let her kids play with, you know, the pots and pans on the floor banging the wooden spoons and banging the Tupperware. And number one is this kitchen is never really safe place to play for a child. You know, some people do it, but you have to understand that at some point that part in the wooden spoon maybe on top of the stove with boiling water it. So, it’s probably best not to let them do that. You know
Eric: Yeah. You’re reinforcing the behavior that you don’t want repeated later on. You know.
Tom: The other thing is people always say give the child but leave one cabinet unlocked in the kitchen. Satisfying that curiosity. Tupperware or paper towels in there and the number one, you’re never going to satisfy a child’s curiosity. It just goes and it grows and it’s on and on and on. And this was a, I think Doctor Spock book 30, 40 years ago that said this would satisfy his curiosity, if you gave him one cabinet in the kitchen. So in New York City, sometimes only have one cabinet, some of the bigger places, you know, you have them, but I don’t like kids playing on the floor in the kitchen. And if it’s okay to play in one cabinet, why isn’t it okay to plan the next?
Eric: Right. Right. That makes perfect sense.
Tom: The chemicals are open and well, you know, mom said this was all right. Plus you tripping over things. It’s best not to be in the kitchen.
Eric: Is there anything else that people are surprised by that you come out and find that they’re unexpecting you know, you talked about the furniture stuff. What’s that?
Tom: box?
Eric: Yeah. Yeah. That too.
Tom: Besides that, you know, people don’t think people, you know, that will last one, they call me out. So during the consultation there’s a lot of things. one thing I don’t see as much but it’s rare that people don’t think about this one, I’ll see you like a bench or a chair next to a railing, you know, for a second floor where, or you know, a seated window and no locks on the windows you know, people always said that their first response to a window while I’m going to give you a window lock for that, don’t say, well, we always keep the windows locked. There’s no way the baby’s gonna reach up and unlock that window. And you know, our responses, it’s not the child who opens the window in most window falls. Usually it’s the caregiver nanny or babysitter, house guest, grandma or grandpa come over. They’re changing the diaper, they’ll open the window to air out the room and leave that window open up. Watch how the two year old child comes by and the windows are not locked and pushes it the rest of the way. So we recommend a window stops on the side of the windows and limit the windows and four inches.
Eric: Do you have brands that you prefer for different stuff?
Tom: We use a variety.
Eric: Yeah.
Tom: yeah, there’s a, I mean between safety first isn’t, you know they do have a couple of good things but I could count. I’m sure you are familiar with {Inaudible} safe beginnings.
Eric: Yeah.
Tom: Wide Variety of great product he’s developed as a child proofer over the years. He’s made gate clamps for a no holes kits, which he manufactures now. He manufactures his own furniture straps, which are excellent. I use um, outlet covers hit by him, but then we go to kid co for gates, cardinal for outside gates. The retractable mashes a little bit off near, I’m not a big fan of the retractables being that you can’t mount them too close to a top step. They’re a little bit difficult for my clients to use, although do look nice. It’s not something I want to walk through. I actually took one from Kimco and put it in my kitchen for a little bit. It was trial and it’s one of the most difficult gates I’ve ever used. High traffic area, if you’re going to use them for a room divider, that’s a great idea. If you’re not going to be passing through it all the time, but to wind up and then retract it back, it’s a lot of customers ask for them because they disappear and the role, but it’s not worth it to me.
Eric: I know people have said to do something similar for pool fence and it doesn’t work for that either. Exactly.. So you asked me in your email to ask you about feeding twins, by the way, if you read that you misspelled. I couldn’t, I had to decipher it. So was, it was tough to read, but I figured it out though.
Tom: It’s rough you know, I’m 53 years old. I have four year old twins, a nine year old son. My oldest child, my wife is 43. So, you know, it’s a busy life and sometimes shooting emails out to, I consider us more friends than professional.
Eric: It just took him and I’m like, all right, what’s he trying to say here? {Inaudible}
Tom: If I’m not emailing with a client, I do tend to say, oh, I hope he got that or not. The problem is once you get to it, I’ll get to the end of the email and then I get distracted and if I put the phone down, I don’t finish the email and it doesn’t get sent. So I apologize for that. And along that thought of being a busy wife, one of the things I said, and this being a parent of twins, there’s not only is there an aspect of childproofing involved in that? And one thing I like to tell my clients is that it’s half price. You know, it’s one of the only things twin that you won’t have to buy one of.
Eric: there you go.
Tom: So it’s relevant now{only}, but as far as feeding them, oh my God, it’s getting better because they’re four now, but when they were eight, nine months old and you know, at the dinner table I said, I never could have imagined myself throwing food at a child.
But yeah, there were a couple of times just sit and try to quiet them down, thrown food across the table. So it’s pretty hectic. It’s pretty hectic. But they’re amazing little product testers and you know, I learned a lot about childproofing A lot about supervision. You know none of this stuff we sell really replaces supervision. It’s not like we could go shopping childproof the house, but it does make your life a lot easier. And I never imagined that I would use so many gates in the small house. I have, I mean probably about four or five gates in a one floor and just to keep them confined to different locations, you know.
Eric: So is there anything in particular about twins from a child safety standpoint that you found?
Tom: Well they, you know, so as far as the play yard, you know those octagon?
Eric: Yeah
Tom: they’ll lift it up and crawl under that eight months old. It’s that you really do want to screw stuff in when it comes to twins cause they’ll work together, they’ll stand on top of each other, whether the one on the bottom likes it or not. They will stand on each other to get over that. I guess in the case of the dressers falling on each other, sometimes they’ll help each other out. It’s never happened in my house. I guess one of the biggest fears is that happens in somebody else’s house. I’m always worried when they go on play dates, but childproof from the, I guess the biggest thing is it’s, you know, one cabinet lock works for two kids, that’s the best part of it.
Eric: That is cool when your kids go on play, do you feel obligated to a walk through to at least semi safe?
Tom: I don’t know how many, yeah, I don’t feel obligated. I feel morally and parents, I feel a parental do that. But from another standpoint, I feel like a social, it’s not going to go over well. When my first son was born, I did go into, we have him staying at a woman whose licensed daycare at a home and I did go. I insisted that I go through her home. I did find a few things, one window and a piece of furniture that I told her I dropped it and get on, put it in for and this year actually the twins are in Pre k program here on Long Island and I went to pick them up and sure enough there was furniture that wasn’t anchored to the wall and there was a big fan, a big metal fan resting on top of a bookshelf also with a wire each draped down, plugged into the walls so I had to speak to the supervisor and my wife thinks things haven’t been the same since then, but they did screwed into the wall.
I offered to do it for them, but maybe, you know,
Eric: 9 year old kids, maybe you saved somebody else, you know.
Tom: she was nice to meet to me the next time I saw her.
Eric: That’s all that matters.
Tom: Happy they’re still alive. I couldn’t in good conscious and walk out and not say anything
Eric: right.
Tom: It’s against everything I worked for the past 20 years. So you know in my approach, I said, “look, I’m really sorry to bother you about this, but you have to know I’m a professional childproof or I do this every day and the bookshelf in my son’s classroom isn’t anchored to the wall”. And she said, “yes it is” I said, “no son”. No we did it. And I said it’s not. She goes, oh, she goes, I thought you were going to talk about the electric. And I said, “what electric?” She goes, where the fans plugged in. we’re going to put the plug up higher. I was going to talk to you about that too. The Fan, the cord shouldn’t, we’re going to fix that.
Eric: Yeah, I mean if you had walked out of there and then not said something and then found out some other kid got hurt, I mean that would be,
Tom: I’m not a good salesman. I read a couple of books when I first started the business about how to close sales and business but I’ve never really been that kind of high pressure. If you side with us today, you’re going to get a, it’s going to go up a threefold tomorrow. If you don’t sign with us today, one of the best sales tactics is honesty. Tell them, your kid can fall out the window, they can fall down the stairs and it’s up to you. And as a parent, if once you’ve been worn, like I saw that dresser that cabinet in my son’s daycare. Once you know about that, you have to fix it. You have to (Inaudible}
Eric: No, I’ve always been with you. When I talked to dealers, I always tell him not to do the high pressure sales pitch. You know, if you educate people and you tell them the truth and you’re, you know, honest about what you’re doing, you know, I think people appreciate that at least in the long-term more than the high pressure used car guy. You know,
Tom: as soon as that happens and like I said, I read some books and when I first started the business and as soon as I hear that, one of those techniques that I learned, as soon as I feel that being used on me, I walk away, I want to go now, I just don’t have time for that you know?
Eric: Yeah. I, I heard a quote, people hate to be sold to you, but they love to buy, you know, so it’s figuring out a way to make people trust you and get the buy from you without, selling to them. You’re in good shape.
Tom: Once you have a good product.
Eric: that helps
Tom: you don’t see a lot of real high pressure sales with apples?
Eric: No, they don’t need it. Right.
Tom: Nobody’s trying to sell you food. Right.
Eric: No. I was gonna say with twins, we hear all the time and I’m starting to become cognizant cause I see it so often is how many twins drown together? It happens way too frequently yeah, I see news stories about it constantly. I’m not sure if it’s because they help each other, they follow each other, but kids drowning, it’s a thing and it happens all the time.
Tom: I was not aware of that statistic
Eric: Yeah. You know, there’s the guy that I’m a good friends with, we work with, his name is Paul Ermelo and his two twins both {drowned} And so ever since then I’ve paid attention to it and I’ve talked to him about it too. And he’s noticed as well. It’s a, it’s a thing. I don’t know the numbers on it, but you know, twins drown. It seems really often.
Tom: But it happened last year on my hometown.
Eric: Yeah. Two twins?
Tom: Yeah Twins one set of twins. yeah,
Eric: one sec.
Tom: It was horrible. And they had an older son as well, like we do and we live in Melville Long Island. And this made the news. It was horrible. It was a closed pool and for me somehow that makes it even more gruesome that it was mucky, It wasn’t like a clean pool and they had to send the divers in there to get them out. And it took them like an hour to find, you know, the other one. They got one but it took them an hour to find the other one but apparently the mom was still sleeping and the five or six year old older brother let them out the back door and they made it down to the pool. And so my wife took that really hard. I mean it was so similar to us, but they just bought a new house and I wanted to go online and say, why didn’t you buy a pool fence from,
you know, I wanted to say, you know, I didn’t know how to respond. And you know, when you get into your 50s before you do anything, you think about it now. And I started thinking about how many times I’ve met with clients who they moved out to long island from Queens as this doubled in and they stretched their last dollar getting a nice house in a nice neighborhood where their kids can go to a nice school. And there no doubt in my mind that these parents did that, you know, but why didn’t they spend two, three thousand dollar for a offense and it’s not something they wanted to happen. I can’t imagine there what will become like Paul, , I can’t imagine what would happen losing two of my kids, but, people don’t know what it’s like having twins either. there’s been there’s nights where they’re not sleeping and you’re up all night with them, especially in the one to two year old stage, if they’re all schedule is, so this mom, you know, I’m not making {Inaudible} this two dead children, but she was up, she could have been up all night with these two kids. Nobody knows, you know, you’re not there. And then she thought the house was locked. The older kid could have stood on a chair and open up the door and let them out. It’s just horrible. But that’s why we have these things in place. So let’s get angry at him because she didn’t have enough money. You know, not everybody thinks it’s going to happen to them. People take chances and its, its very sad. It’s very sad. But I remember when we were buying our house, we stretched our last nickel. You get into that process of buying a new house and you think you’ve got it all covered until this happens. And that happens. And then you know, you, you’re paying all sorts of people. You never planned on paying to finish. And just because you can’t go back and you can’t even go back to you all out because you’re under contract to sell that one and now you have to buy this and pay this. And you know, they could have been broke. Unfortunately. They didn’t get a fence and their kids died for it.
Eric: Yeah. I try not to, I definitely don’t judge anyone who’s lost a kid anymore. You know, if I ever did, I’ve talked to way too many parents and you know, I don’t think I’ve talked to any of them or I heard his story and thought, oh, that you could have fixed that. You know it’s always something, you know, there’s always, there’s always a good reason, you know, and or something unpreventable most or they recognize the error they made and you know, obviously they wish they could fix it, you know, so
Tom: you know one of the mistakes we, it’s funny when my wife and I occasionally will know to friends with pools, we don’t have a pool and throughout the whole like all, I’ll just keep my eye on the pool all the time cause I can’t force uncle {Sam}to put a pool fencing.
Eric: Right. Yeah.
Tom: He’s, you know, his kids are 20 years old. Twenty, twenty-five years old. So when we go to his house, because he has great parties, I put that chair right by the edge of the pool and if I have to go anywhere, honey, sit down. Make sure they don’t go in the pool or if they’re in the pool, they have life jackets and they’re still being watched, you know, four years old, they haven’t learned to swim but I was going somewhere else with that, but I lost my train of thought.
Eric: But yeah, I mean, you know, a lot of people recommend the water watcher system essentially where you, some people do like a lanyard, someone where it’s, or like as a whistle or whatever. But the being that every 15 minutes, you know, there’s one person was in charge of sitting in a chair by the pool. Or doing nothing but watching the pool for 15 minutes and then you trade off. You know,
Tom: where I was going with that as my wife and I actually have had signals. Now we look like gang members will go one you got like she’s on the other side of the party will be like, I got three.
Eric: Nice. That’s awesome.
Tom: That’s not even just from the pool. That’s like, because they get around, you know, you can’t put them on leashes and you know, we try to keep an eye on him, but when there’s a pool we watch the pool if there’s no pool, you know, I mean imagine going to an amusement park with them. It’s nice. The hand signal thing works. Okay.
Eric: for the pool, have you tried the Safety Turtle? You know what that is
Tom: Safety Turtle I recommend it all the time.
Eric: Yeah, those are great.
Tom: I do recommend them. I don’t sell them, it’s not worth it for me to carry it financially.
Eric: Yeah. They’re expensive.
Tom: {Inaudible} to purchase that especially grandparents or people who are absolutely opposed a pool fence or when they live on the water. The safety turtle is always in my recommendations to them.
Eric: Yeah. As far as alarms go, it’s probably one of my favorites. I liked it. It protects the kid not to pull.
Tom: The downside is that, you know, the bracelet, they don’t want that because now I have it taken off to take a bath. But I think for beach front properties, lakes nearby that you can’t touch for environmental reasons, boats, you know, it’s a great product.
Eric: You know, I always say that if you can remember to put pants on your kid every day or a diaper or shoes, then you can put the safer on you know?
Tom: Yeah. Unfortunately. Well, fortunately it doesn’t happen that much where people are, you know, that diligent about putting the bracelet on. It said, yeah, it’s can’t go outside. You have the time. It’s just, you know, you fall into this sense of security, you know, as a parent, you know I’ve waxed some, you know, there’s things, you know when you have your second kid, you always hear parents are like the second one full year. You get up there, I know it hurts to get up, brush it off, you’re five , you know, you’re picking food up off the floor. When the first one you were washing it with {Inaudible} water and now it’s like, well we got three, I can afford to lose one. Just kidding. Can only really only expecting two, you know, the total of two
Eric: and extra.
Tom: It’s kind of a surprise and you know, it’s just a joke. But my God, it’s tough you know, we’re all numbered, we’re numbered and my wife works full time. She’s a teacher so it’s a life. They say, you know, I went down to Florida just recently to visit my dad. I was with my sister. It was his 80th birthday and I had never felt like I was so useless in my life just sitting there, you know, I went to the gym, came home, I’m reading this paper and there’s no kids to take care of him. This is the first time, four years, they’re almost four years old. And, you know, my sister accidentally, knocked a glass of water off the coffee table. I got it. I got it. She’s like, relax, relax. I’m like, no, I didn’t. You know, it’s just ingrained in me now. There’s always one, two, three, four, five. You know, it’s constant, you know? But I thought while I was on that vacation, I go, what would I rather be? You know, would I rather be single and not marry and be able to sit around and far too sunny, beautiful and like go to the gym, read, or would I rather have that chaos and I’m going to take the chaos. Definitely. Chaos. It’s great watching them grow up. It’s a proud father.
Eric: I think most people would. I don’t hear anybody that ever wants to go back. So
Tom: yeah, maybe a couple of
Eric: maybe. Yeah, maybe a couple of weeks…
Tom: if you really make me think, I’m not going to give names, but I’m sure it’s out there. Said, what do we do? And sometimes I say, what did I do and why did I do this to myself? You know, there’s moments, there’s moments, but a few and far between.
Eric: Yeah. You wouldn’t be, you wouldn’t be human otherwise.
Tom: Yeah, no, no. It’s rough.
Eric: So how can how can folks get ahold of you?
Tom: ebabysafe.com a website.
Eric: Perfect
Tom: babyproofNY@gmail.com.
Eric: Awesome, man. Well, anything….?
Tom: 7,7 not sorry
Eric: it’s that the number
Tom: {inaudible} I’m. Sorry.
Eric: Why not? Sorry. That’s good.
Tom: That’s already that you use my service.
Eric: Nice. He says seven. No, sorry.
Tom: {Inaudible} That’s pretty awesome. On the why for why not?
Eric: I like it. All right, Ben,
Tom: you remember Eric has been a pleasure.
Eric: Anything you want to let people know before we wrap up here?
Tom: Just keep them safe. Love each other. Love everybody. We’re all here together.
Eric: We the women. All right, thanks. I really appreciate it. We again. Yup. I’ll see you soon, man. Bye. Take care.
