A Child Psychologist on Your Pediatric Team
At Ollie Pediatrics in Miami, we know that raising a child is about more than just medical visits - it's about supporting their development, mental, socioemotional, and behavioral well-being. This is why we use an interdisciplinary and collaborative approach with early screenings and proactive interventions to ensure the best outcomes for your child.
What That Actually Changes
In most pediatric practices, a worry about your child's mood or behavior ends in a referral: a name, a phone number, and a waitlist that can run for months. You retell the whole story to someone who has never met your child, and your pediatrician often never hears how it went.
Dr. Alejandra Sisniegas is a doctoral-level child psychologist and part of the Ollie team. She works alongside your pediatrician, reads the same chart, and is included in your membership rather than billed as something separate.
No referral, no waitlist
Support starts with a conversation in a visit you were already having, not a phone call to a practice across town.
No retelling the story
She already has your child's history: the sleep, the illnesses, the growth, the context. You start in the middle rather than at the beginning.
Your pediatrician stays involved
Medical and psychological care are not handed back and forth between strangers. Both sides stay in the same conversation.
The Psychologist Your Child Would See
Dr. Sisniegas is a fellowship-trained psychologist who earned her doctorate in Clinical Psychology at Nova Southeastern University. She has worked with hundreds of children, adolescents and families on behavior, development, anxiety, depression, ADHD, and the harder work of adjusting to a medical diagnosis.
Her pre-doctoral internship was at Children's Hospital Colorado, inside an integrated primary care setting, working day to day alongside pediatricians, nurses and psychiatrists. That is the same model she practices in at Ollie. Psychology sitting inside primary care is not an experiment here; it is what she trained in.
She describes her own approach as non-judgmental and evidence-based, and says building a trusting relationship with a family comes before anything else. Most parents notice that first.
What Families Bring to Her
Most of it is ordinary. Very little of it needs a diagnosis to be worth talking about.
Worry and anxiety
A child who asks the same question twenty times, resists school drop-off, or cannot settle at bedtime because of what might happen tomorrow.
Behavior that does not fit the age
Meltdowns that have outlasted the toddler years, aggression that worries you, defiance that has stopped responding to anything you try.
Attention and ADHD
Trouble focusing, falling behind, or a teacher raising something you had already half noticed at home.
Low mood
A child who has gone quiet, lost interest in what they used to love, or started saying hard things about themselves.
Sleep that never settled
Bedtime battles and night waking often have as much to do with worry as with routine. She and our sleep consultant work on those together.
Big changes
A move, a new sibling, a separation, a loss. Children often show these in their behavior months before they can put them into words.
Adjusting to a diagnosis
A new medical condition is a lot for a child to carry, and often for the rest of the house too. This is one of her areas of focus.
Development
Early screening when something about milestones, speech or social development does not feel right, and you would rather ask than wait.
Parents Get Looked After Too
Most of what helps a struggling child happens through the adults around them. Parents are not patients at Ollie, but they are not left outside the room either.
After a birth, someone asks how you are
The newborn months are when parents are least likely to be asked that question and most likely to need it. Those check-ins happen inside your baby's visits, rather than as an appointment you have to remember to book for yourself.
Time with you, not only your child
Sessions often include time with parents on their own, to talk through what you are seeing at home, what you have already tried, and what is worth trying next.
Something you can actually run
You leave with an approach for Monday morning rather than a report to file. Most of the progress happens between appointments, at home, with you.
If you need more, we help you find it
Ollie is your child's practice rather than your own. When a parent needs care in their own right, we would rather say so early and help you reach the right person than quietly leave it.
How It Actually Works
There is no separate intake, no second practice to join, and nothing for you to arrange.
It usually starts in an ordinary visit
Visits run 45 minutes, which is long enough for the conversation to get past the reason you booked. Often it begins with something a parent mentions almost in passing, on the way out.
Screening happens whether or not you raise it
Children receive mental wellness evaluations twice a year as part of ordinary care, so things surface while they are still small.
Included, not billed separately
Dr. Sisniegas is part of your membership. There is no separate fee to weigh up each time you consider asking for help, which is usually the moment families delay, and it is one of the things the concierge model is designed to remove.
Wherever suits that week
In the office, at home, or by video. A child who will not talk in a consulting room will sometimes talk on their own sofa.
When to Say Something, and When to Wait
Almost every parent who raises a concern starts by apologizing for it. The question underneath is nearly always the same: is this a phase, or is this something?
The honest answer is that you do not have to work that out on your own. Telling the difference is clinical judgement, and having someone qualified to make it is most of what you are here for.
Worth mentioning
Something that has lasted longer than a few weeks. Something that has started affecting sleep, school or friendships. Something that is getting worse rather than settling. Or simply something you have been turning over for a while and have not said out loud.
You are not wasting anyone's time
A conversation that ends with “this is normal, and here is why” is a good outcome, not a wasted one. It is also a great deal easier than a year of wondering.
Part of Family Wellness at Ollie
A child's mental health is never really treated in isolation from the household. Sleep debt belongs to everyone. Worry tends to show up as a family pattern long before it shows up as a diagnosis. Feeding struggles are rarely only about food.
Psychology is one part of family wellness at Ollie. The rest of it sits on the same team.
Sleep
Daniela Otero, our certified sleep consultant, treats bedtime as a household problem rather than a child's problem. Worry and sleep feed each other, so she and Dr. Sisniegas often work a case together.
Nutrition
A registered dietitian nutritionist, for when eating has become the thing everyone is anxious about and nobody is enjoying.
Parent coaching
Our parent coaches work on the day to day: routines that hold, screens, and friction between siblings that nobody wants to keep refereeing.
Expect An Exceptional Medical Team
Dr. Claudia Landaeta
The best pediatric care is built through relationships that grow over time, with thoughtful listening and partnership with parents.
Dr. Alejandra Sisniegas
Hi! My name is Dr. Alejandra Sisniegas, Ollie’s primary care and child psychologist, and I love empowering children and parents...
Dr. Giselle Garcia-Rivero
Hi! I’m Dr. Giselle Garcia-Rivero, a proud mom of three wonderful kids and a board-certified pediatric nurse practitioner...
Frequently Asked Questions
Why have a psychologist inside a pediatric practice?
It’s care that treats mental and physical health as one system, not two departments. Ollie’s pediatricians work side-by-side with a child psychologist, so emotional and behavioral wellbeing are part of every checkup — not a referral across town when something’s already wrong.
Do you have a child psychologist on staff?
Yes. Dr. Alejandra Sisniegas, PsyD, is integrated into Ollie’s care model. Depending on your child’s age, developmental stage, and membership, psychological support may include proactive developmental check-ins, parent guidance, emotional and behavioral consultation, and more focused care when a concern arises.
What kinds of concerns can you help with?
Common ones include anxiety, behavioral challenges, school and social difficulties, sleep problems, attention concerns, and developmental questions — caught early, in a place your child already knows and trusts. For needs beyond our scope, we coordinate referrals and stay involved.
Is mental health support an extra cost?
Mental health is an essential part of Ollie’s pediatric primary care model. It is not a separate service that begins only after a problem develops. That’s why every Ollie membership includes proactive developmental support and screenings as part of your child’s ongoing care.
Our integrated psychologist works alongside your pediatrician to monitor your child’s emotional, behavioral, and developmental wellbeing, provide guidance to parents, and help families navigate common challenges before they become larger concerns. Many questions can be addressed during brief consultations or “micro-sessions” that are naturally integrated into your child’s care.
If your child would benefit from ongoing psychotherapy or more intensive mental health treatment, we’ll discuss those recommendations with you and help coordinate the right level of care.
