About

Hi, I’m Dr. Allison Kops! I am a Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT), International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC), and mother of three girls! I live in Alexandria with my husband, 3 daughters, and dog! When I’m not working to support other families I am usually playing, swimming, managing some sort of chaos, or driving around to various kid activities.

I received my Bachelor of Science in Rehabilitation Science and Doctorate in Physical Therapy both from Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts. I have spent my entire career in pediatrics and have been a PT for well over a decade now. Prior to opening The Baby PT, my professional experience had taken place in both the early intervention home visiting setting, and the outpatient pediatric clinic setting. I began seeking additional trainings in breast and bottle feeding in 2017 and became a Certified Breastfeeding Specialist (CBS) in 2022 and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) in 2024. In addition to my clinical education, I also leverage my own experience, as a mother of children who had various early struggles, to guide my clinical approach and communication with families.

I love working with babies and their caregivers, and honestly never planned to own my own practice. After experiencing limitations in various settings I’ve worked in, as well as struggling to find ideal support when my own babies had difficulties, I found myself wanting to find a better way to support babies with the individualization and skill they deserve.

Although I loved working in homes in Early Intervention to support babies and toddlers, often with serious medical concerns like extreme prematurity, genetic syndromes, and neonataI abstinence syndrome, I found that this model wasn’t a great fit for all babies. I felt that early intervention did a wonderful job with babies with significant needs in multiple areas, but when babies would come through with more “short term” or “minor” concerns like torticollis it didn’t feel like the most efficient way to address those types of needs. Because Early Intervention is a federally mandated program, there are a lot of specific procedures that have to be followed, and things don’t necessarily move very quickly. It was frustrating to find that babies had experienced delays in getting support because of how the referral/intake/evaluation process worked. Even when things were scheduled quickly, if a baby wasn’t delayed enough (yet), they may not be found eligible for services.

I thought that maybe outpatient clinics were a better fit for typically developing babies with short term needs, however, I quickly learned that they also have limitations. Staffing issues have lead to long waitlists, scheduling difficulties, and patients are sometimes bounced between different therapists. In most of these clinics the therapists are seeing patients from a wide age range, so individual therapists may or may not have a lot of training specific to the infant population. I also personally found that my interventions weren’t able to be as tailored to the specific child and family as I would have liked because I was seeing them in a clinical environment instead of at home with their families, I didn’t have enough time to get a thorough picture, and families couldn’t get in contact with me if they had questions or concerns between sessions …Plus the germaphobe in me just felt bad having small babies in the waiting room often full of rambunctious toddlers and preschoolers.

On a more personal note, I have been a strong advocate for breastfeeding since grad school, but didn’t become really interested in education around lactation until I had my own babies. My first daughter breastfed (relatively) easily from the beginning, so I was unprepared when my second daughter struggled with reflux or “colic” symptoms, and just overall wasn’t good at eating and wasn’t a happy baby! I sought support from many different lactation consultants who offered various compensatory strategies but none of them conducted an oral motor assessment or seemed to have any plans to build her skills. I knew I needed some sort of functional therapist for that, but actually locating a PT, OT, or SLP with the ideal skill set to assess and treat my full term, supposedly healthy baby, who was gaining weight well was easier said than done. So thanks to my now 7 year old, I started down the path to learn everything I could about about lip and tongue ties, infant food allergies, and breast and bottle feeding. I love that I am now able to support gross motor, oral motor and sensory/regulation aspects of feeding, and have a better big picture understanding of the interaction between gross motor skills and feeding skills. I also pride myself on listening, helping families problem-solve, and connecting them with other providers with the best expertise to meet their needs when concerns beyond my scope arise.

So, all this to say that I now am the owner of The Baby PT, where I love supporting babies and families in a really personalized way. I look forward to meeting you!