Working for more than 8 hours

[Suzie_Homemaker]

I'm quite surprised you haven't realized that most people work more than 8 hours and therefore need childcare that covers that. The days of 9 to 5 are mainly gone in most areas but even then, if a parent works those hours or a variant of them like 8 until 4, they work 8 hours and need time to get from you to work and to get from work to home. Unless in a downtown location, most of your client's will pick a day care nearer home vs nearer their work because it avoids having their child in a car, in traffic, in storms. It makes more sense to be closer to home to minimise the travel time for the child.
I have a handful of client's over the years that needed 9 hours or less - and typically that's if one parent who starts work later than their partner drops off the child, and the other parent who finishes work first collects the child from day care.
Even my grown son works 10 hours as a standard day (min). He has to be to work for 7am and sometimes he get's done at 4pm but more likely 5pm and sometimes later.
10 hours of care is fairly common these days. There's a lot of provider's working 11 or 12 as standard. Remember too, that just because one of your client's begins work at 7.30am needing a 7am drop that not all of them start as early as that client so they will also finish later.
You are also not considering the work that has to happen once children are gone. In your surprise at a 10 hour day, you are only looking at the hours that children are present.
Once they are gone, you need to clean up, sanitise, clean the bathroom. Some days you will need to strip beds and launder bedding. If you provide food, you will also need time to go to the grocery store, bring that home, unpack it, prep meals.
A 10 hour day is short when you factor in the tasks that happen prior to unlocking your door and once the last child has gone home. Most days, if you are open 10 hours, you will be working 11 hours with these routine tasks. And if you go for groceries in the evening, some days it will be a 13 hours day or you'll lose a few hours of your weekend.
I cannot think of a single client I have had over the last decade plus who only required me to work 7 hours - that would require them to work 6 hours, be able to get from me to their work in 30 mins and likewise on the way home. LOL, if you find one of those clients, embrace it, because they are few and far between.

Drop in care - I don't offer this for the reasons I'm going to give.
1) a casual child even if they come 5 time a month, is an outsider to the core group.
2) That child doesn't know your routine and that can clash with the usual timing of their day for meals and nap time.
3) They can be upset because they are less familiar with you and your environment and as such, dealing with a child who is upset most of the day, is time consuming and takes away from your core client group who are the ones paying your bills regularly.
4) Drop in client's can abuse your policies easier and because they aren't reliant on you for regular care, they aren't concerned about you refusing to take them again. It's therefore often a drop in client who shows up late to get their child and often after the agreed time, who doesn't answer your call if they have dropped off a sick child and dosed them up so know it's you calling when the meds have warn off. Some people look for drop in when their regular child care provider has excluded them for illness in order to cease the spread to other clients - if this is common in your area, expect your regular client's to be pretty ticked off at the endless exposure to ill children.
I do not offer drop in. I take full time client only. Drop in means risking poorly behaved, aggressive children, who you are then stuck with for the full day. No thanks.