Great question and definitely a learning experience that I have gone through.

I usually always asked for evening appts. My husband is home by then and he warned me that I need to be just as careful about myself as the DCK. He said that the ad being online could attract any crazy....even couples can be crazy.

However I did have a couple of families specifying and INSISTING that they wanted to come during the day when the daycare was running because they wanted to see the age groups and see if their child meshed with the other kids etc. Being new...I backed down and agreed.

Well, each of those interviews was a bust. It is impossible to pay attention to your DCK while being interviewed and try to interact with a new child too. Parents would ask serious questions and I would start to answer but then one of the DCK would have a question or get hurt or fight over a toy and I would lose my train of thought.

Also...I would try to show the parents my menu or police check or my newsletter and then my DCK would want to see and grab the papers away. Papers were getting strewn about, ripped, bent = disaster.

I do not recommend the interview during daycare hours at all.

I did let my daycare parents know in advance that someone would be coming into the home and they were okay with it but it was a disaster nonetheless. It is not normal to be doing your job and watching the kids and being interviewed at the same time. It makes you do a poor job on both fronts and is too much multi-tasking.

I learned the hard way. I am not doing any more interviews until the fall but they won't be during the DC hours. That is for sure