Baby got bell-bottoms

She’s never heard it.

ABBA? Bee Gees?

For my new baby, Emmeline, these aren’t disco deities. They’re linguistic milestones.

So I don’t know what compelled me to haul the 10-week-old bundle of sugar, spice and hair-trigger rage to Baby Loves Disco, a new dance club phenomenon sweeping the nation.

Maybe she’ll like the lights. There’s got to be a disco ball. Maybe she’s a dancing queen in the making. Or maybe, just maybe, her parents need a break.

“That’s the not-so-secret secret,” said promoter Andy Hurwitz. “This is for the parents. Kids will dance to anything – they’ll dance to a ring tone. This is a chance for the parents to get out of the house and do something different.”

Indeed.

No more tummy time. Bring on “The Hustle.”

Goodbye burp cloths. Hello bell-bottoms, butterfly collars, white shoes, plaid pants, glowing gold medallions and foot-high curly black disco-fro wigs. Daddy wants to dance.

And Baby Loves Disco is just the place to do it.

The craze started in Philadelphia two years ago and quickly moved to New York, where parents sign up for tickets six months in advance, and where Hurwitz envisions a 5,000-person baby rave in Central Park in the not-too-distant future.

Now Baby Loves Disco can be found in Los Angeles; Chicago; Boulder, Colo.; and, for at least the next two months, San Francisco.

On a dripping-hot Saturday afternoon, parents lined up for a half-block to cram into the Ruby Skye nightclub in San Francisco.

Except for the daylight and the scores of strollers parked in the lobby, the scene called to mind the hippest of dance clubs – with thumping music, light shows, bubble machines and bottles for kids and adults.

Sure, most clubs don’t offer changing stations in the hallways. But who’s going to argue the point with a man holding a dirty diaper?

For a few hours at least, the dance club transformed from a three-story sweatbox writhing with babes to, um, a three-story sweatbox writhing with babes.

But these babes wore diapers.

It sure beats the swing sets and sandboxes, says Heather Herron-Libson, a San Francisco mom who helped organize the event.

“There’s nothing else like it that I’ve found,” she said

Usually, her Saturday afternoons are devoted to more sedate activities. “I don’t know, the park maybe?”

She’s not the only one enraptured by the craze.

“It’s sooo loud and sooooo fun,” said 7-year-old Julia Barsocchini of San Carlos, her eyes wild and glowing. Shaking baby syndrome, perhaps?

Her father, David, followed her into the dance hall.

He had seen a mention of the dance online and sent the notice to his network of parents. Soon, the whole contingent was on its way to San Francisco, looking for something beyond the usual Saturday-afternoon activities.

“We’d be at the club swimming or something else,” Barsocchini said.

Instead, he’s back at the dance club he used to frequent before he had kids.

That’s another facet of the craze. Beyond looking for something different, part of the attraction of Baby Loves Disco is doing something familiar.

For the Bugaboo set, it’s time to boogie again.

“I used to be a raver,” said Herron-Libson, opening a crate of juice boxes. “But let’s face it, for parents, it’s hard to go out and do stuff like this.”

Indeed, after a half-hour, Emmeline had seen enough, so it was time to go back home. I’m sure she’ll grow to appreciate the music, the dancing or the retro clothes at some point.

But at the moment, she was pooped.

Literally.