Kathryn Stimpson - The Sensitive Child Sleep Coach
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I help hardworking parents with sleep thieves under 4 to gently sleep coach so that they can be heal
I was diagnosed with ADHD this year. At 42.
The moment the penny dropped, a lot of things I’d spent my whole life apologising for suddenly made sense.
The busy mind that never switches off. Struggling to sleep — a strange thing to admit when sleep is your job. Losing things constantly. Never quite able to order myself or my day.
The headphones. I wear them to block out noise I can’t cope with — the kids’ dysregulation, loud voices, the volume of family life. And I also wear them when there’s no one in the house at all, because the noise is in my own head and I need it quieter so I can think.
My school reports said “if only Kathryn could concentrate.” I wasn’t the stereotype people picture — not obviously hyperactive. I was away with the fairies, in my own world, quietly struggling while looking like I wasn’t trying. Nobody looked at that and thought ADHD.
Now I understand.
I also understand why my mental health has always needed active looking after. I’ve had chronic fatigue. I’m in perimenopause.
I have ADHD, and I have ADHD and autistic children, and trying to regulate yourself while supporting children who are dysregulated is genuinely debilitating some days. Sensory overload is real. The energy drain touches everything.
I don’t say any of this for sympathy. I say it because there are other women in their 40s quietly holding all of this together and assuming they’re just not trying hard enough.
Mental health isn’t something I just have. I nurture it, the same way I do my physical health.
If any of this feels familiar, you’re really not alone in it. And if you’d like to talk to someone who gets it, my inbox is open. No pressure, no pitch, just a conversation.
What’s one thing you wish someone had spotted in you sooner?
Have you ever repeated “teeth, pyjamas, toilet, bed” so many times that you can hear the frustration building in your own voice?
Your child may not be deliberately ignoring you.
ADHD can make it difficult to hold several steps in working memory, especially when they are already tired, distracted or overloaded. By bedtime, both their capacity and yours may be running low.
That does not mean removing every expectation. It means asking whether the instruction is available to them in a form their tired brain can use.
Does your child forget the task halfway through doing it?
I’m sharing a simple visual bedtime tool and examples inside my free Facebook community today. The link is in my bio.
05/10/2026
For many ADHD children, the difficulty begins before they are even in bed.
They are being asked to stop something interesting, change state, remember several steps, tolerate demands and somehow quieten a busy body and brain.
That does not mean there should be no boundaries. It means the transition may need more support than generic bedtime advice allows.
Which part of the bedtime transition is hardest in your house?
ADHD Awareness Month is personal for me.
I have ADHD, and so do my children. So when I talk about racing brains, bedtime transitions, sensory needs, emotional intensity and the difficulty of switching off, I am not speaking only from theory.
Throughout October, I’ll be sharing honest experiences, practical tools and professional insight into ADHD, sleep and family wellbeing.
What would be most useful for me to cover?
30/09/2026
As we head into October, I’ll be talking more about ADHD, sleep and regulation.
Not because every sensitive child has ADHD.
But because so many of the themes overlap: racing brains, difficulty switching off, sensory needs, bedtime resistance, emotional crashes and the “tired but wired” feeling.
Would this be useful to hear more about?
23/09/2026
September can show up in sleep before children have the words to explain what they’re feeling.
For sensitive and neurodivergent children, transitions are not just practical changes. They can be full nervous system events.
So if bedtime has become harder, night waking has increased, mornings feel earlier, or emotions feel bigger, you are not imagining it.
It doesn’t mean you’ve failed.
It may simply mean the transition is landing.
Have you noticed a September sleep wobble in your house?
14/09/2026
I’ve been quiet again.
Halfway through August, we had to make the heartbreaking decision to say goodbye to our 15.5-year-old dog, Bert. I knew it would be sad, but the depth of the grief really shocked me.
At the same time, we were still navigating school uncertainty, SEND decisions, and the emotional load of September arriving after a very difficult year.
So I disappeared a bit.
Not because I had nothing to say, but because I didn’t have anything spare.
And honestly, that’s something I know so many parents understand. Sometimes life gets so full that the non-essential things have to go, even when they matter.
I’m slowly finding my way back now.
Still here. Still doing this work. Still believing deeply that sleep, wellbeing, nervous systems, SEND family life and parent capacity are all connected.
No polished comeback. Just a gentle hello again.
If September has felt heavy for you too, you’re not alone.
25/08/2026
Bert, you were the dog I never knew I needed.
Nothing prepared me for how much it would hurt losing you. I’ve been quiet on here this last week as we said goodbye to Bert.
I’d feared this day for two years. I knew I’d be upset, but I am absolutely devastated.
We had fourteen and a half years together, you came into my life when you were just over one, and you lived to fifteen and a half. From that moment you brought so much joy and so much stress into our lives. Always up to mischief, always plotting your next adventure. You really were the dog with nine lives.
You escaped more times than I can count, being a proper Patterdale, running off was practically a hobby. We left you for just five minutes in my mum’s dog-safe garden, fencing and all, and in that time you’d dug straight under it through the soil and were off on your own adventure for hours, it took the dog lost community to help find you. You got hit by a car and shrugged it off. You chased a cat off a fence and landed bottom-first in a rosebush. You got yourself tangled in barbed wire. We chased you through more woods and fields than I can remember. You even dug yourself under a shed once. Countless adventures, countless grey hairs for me.
The kids loved you so much and miss you every day, each in their own way. Ruby loved taking care of you, always the reassurance of you being there.
We just loved you so much.
I like to think you’re running free somewhere now, off on one more adventure.
Loving you always. 🐾
14/08/2026
Not every hard moment is just behaviour.
Sometimes the body is part of the story too.
A child who is struggling might also be:
tired
hungry
overstimulated
dysregulated
needing movement
needing more transition time
needing the world to slow down a bit or speed up
That does not mean every hard moment has a simple fix.
But it does mean behaviour is not the whole story.
This is especially true for many sensitive and neurodivergent children, where sleep, sensory load, movement, food, and the pace of the day can all affect how things feel by the evening.
Sometimes what looks like “too much” is actually a child whose system has had too much.
Which one tends to tip things most in your house - tiredness, hunger, sensory overload, or needing more movement?
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