In my experience, with both my own very clingy daughter and clingy daycare children , a quick hug and good bye is best at drop off. Any prolonging does not improve the situation. It is not that your daughter is not used to the provider, it is that she does not want you to leave, period. If you stay for 4 hours and then leave, your daughter is still going to cry because she will still not want you to leave and I think she will be even more confused by the hours long delay. It is important to get into a quick good bye routine from the beginning. I have never had a child who did not calm down soon after mom or dad left. I never had a 4 mos old with separation anxiety, but I have had several toddlers who did. They put on the show for mom or dad to see if they could get them to stay and turned it off soon after the parents left

Also, I would never had entertained having a dcm at my house for 4 hours each day. I have never heard of anyone doing that. I would have felt like I had to entertain the mom and the kids would not have gotten my attention.