24-hour potty people

Technically speaking, they weren't quite bellied up to the bar. At an average of about 2 feet tall, the miniature club kids perched on snakeskin barstools at the Revolution Rock Bar could barely reach their juice boxes.

The Revolution Rock, typically frequented by an after-work crowd of full-grown singles, was transformed for a few daytime hours on Sunday into a romper room for cooped-up parents and their crazy-legged toddlers. With bubble machines, hula hoops, and classic soul and disco tracks pumping over the sound system at 110 beats a minute, it was a Studio 54 for kids still learning to count to five.

The event was the Boston kickoff of Baby Loves Disco , a fast-growing national network of monthly outings that sanitize the nightclub setting for the day-care crowd. Judging by Sunday's Oreo-smeared grins and temporarily tattooed limbs, by the end of the afternoon the first local participants were ready for a hard-earned bubble bath.

"He's 17 months old and 40 inches tall ," said Georg Higgins of his son, Miles. "He's amazing." The Boston realtor and his wife, Kristen , seemed less intent on getting Miles to burn off his yogurt calories on the dance floor than in taking advantage of the photo opportunities, posing Miles with a bartender in front of the club's massive fish tank.

Left to his own devices, Miles was more interested in climbing into the mesh basket of egg-shaped rattles . Between the arctic chill that has lately descended on the area and the fact that the Children's Museum is closed until April for renovations, the Higginses were not the only couple to express enthusiastic relief at the arrival of Baby Loves Disco.

Beaming as she snared her son, Josh, inside a hula hoop, Xiaohui Wang noted that she's not sending him to day care this winter.

"Too many viruses," she hollered over the music, which, while amplified, was carefully calibrated not to rattle a single sternum. Then the Wangs wiggled back out toward the dance floor to the opening refrain of Prince's "I Wanna Be Your Lover."

The set list, spun by vintage vinyl expert DJ Kon , featured the usual disco suspects -- "YMCA" and "The Hustle" -- but also stretched back to Manu Dibango and forward to Grandmaster Flash. Disco, Kon said as he manned the turntables in the back of the club's basement-level dance space, "is really just soul and R&B with a dance beat." It's perfect for little rug-cutters, he said: "I've got a sister who's 10 years my difference. Kids, they eat it up if it's good."

Part of the point of Baby Loves Disco, said Boston hostess Kristin Chalmers , who lives in Arlington with her husband and their 2 -year-old son, Robert, is to introduce kids to adult music: "I grew up listening to Lou Rawls and Barry White -- my mother was single in the '70s. The real world is not Laurie Berkner and Dan Zanes ," she said, citing two of the most successful contemporary children's artists.

Chalmers, a former modern dancer who also spent some time in Europe in the early '90s hosting raves as MC Sweet 'n' Low, was a natural choice as Boston's Baby Loves Disco organizer. Her hometown, Philadelphia, is also home to Heather Murphy , another modern dancer-turned-new mom who created the concept in 2004, and Andy Blackman Hurwitz , founder of the jazz- and jam-leaning Ropeadope Records , who knew Chalmers from way back and helped convince Murphy to take the idea nationwide.

Finding an amenable bar in Boston was no small task, said Chalmers. Many were wary of hosting children, even in a private-party setting. Other venues were just too big, with too many levels for kids to clamber out of their parents' sight . The Revolution Rock, said Chalmers, seemed instantly perfect.

"There are pillars, but they're all padded with vinyl," she said. The main floor featured a long dry bar overflowing with snacks, a large chill-out area strewn with pillows and books, and free extras for weary parents, such as a masseu se and an eyebrow-waxing station. Admission was $12 "for all walking humans." Infants got in for free.

"I hope we don't outgrow the space," the hostess said, noting that February's event is already sold out. The Baby Loves Disco team deliberately undersold the club, capping ticket sales at 300 to prevent overcrowding.

"We don't want butts in children's faces," Chalmers joked.

Downstairs, club general manager Shawn Donovan surveyed the scene from the edge of the dance floor, a stylishly tattered camouflage baseball cap cocked at an angle on his head, one hand resting on his nephews' double stroller. As the Gap Band's "You Dropped a Bomb on Me" nosedived into the mix, one mother peeled off a black sweater to reveal a sleeveless silver lame top underneath.

"This is the cutest crowd we've ever had," said bartender Kellyanne Willis. She knew, she said, that this wouldn't be a big-money gig.

"But how often do we get to see this? Some of these kids have some serious moves. They're not embarrassed yet."

Nearby, 3-year-old Finnegan Shea of Framingham was wearing a custom-made T-shirt that read "I Have a Move and I Have Come to Bust It."

"We're go-getters," said Finnegan's mother, Tara Shea . She herded together a group of 10, half parents and half kids, for the trip into town. Her husband elected to stay behind with the couple's second child.

"He's fine without the disco," she said with a smile.

While plenty of fathers were in attendance, most did seem content to let the moms and kids hit the dance floor. Brian Matthews , a technology solutions director from Newton, stood along the wall with his friend Gerd Schmidt , watching their wives and children whirl. Had they tried to drag him out on the floor?

"They're having fun," said Matthews, grinning and taking another sip of his Corona.