With my first, I had been losing plug for almost 3 weeks, so I won't count that. I had prodomal labor (start and stop with lots of tough contractions) for about a week. Then, I had a day of NO contractions (none that I felt, anyway) and that day, my water broke. lol
With my second, I had no symptoms until a few days before I went into labor. Then, I started losing lots of plug and getting contractions while in bed each night. They'd always go away as soon as I stood up. When I actually went into labor, I was just sitting and playing cards and started getting contractions 5 minutes apart right away, and my water broke about an hour later.