Oh, I just answered this in somebody else's thread! I offer 7:30-5 as my hours but my current families all use 8-4:15ish and I'm so lucky. I used to work 7am - 5:30 from the time the first one arrived and the last ones left but those clients are gone and I don't want to do that ever again.

We DO work way OVER 12 hour days when you consider all we have to do in the evenings for cleanup and preparing for the next day and dishes, sweeping, vacuuming, laundry, getting groceries. I tell parents that my work is not done when the children leave.