Daughter keeps saying daddy

[Toddler1]

Hi
I have a 20 month old daughter who has recently been calling out to "daddy" which would be quite normal except her dad has never been in the picture. I was never phased initially when she started saying dada as she was trying to form sounds which is normal in her development. However this has really thrown me off guard as she tends to use it in the same context as the word "mummy". But it's like she's actually looking at someone when she says it (sounds crazy right?!)

Has any other single mums found this?

It makes me feel really guilty that her dad is not in the picture. ( his choice, not mine). I know I have questions to come but literally didn't expect it to bother me so much at her age.

I'd imagine she's got it from TV? Does she watch anything with a Daddy character in it?

Single mum, actually lone parent here. It was "Dada", "Cat", "Daddy" "Mmmcat!" and then finally "Mama" when she turned 2. The cats were always more of a constant than the father ever was (she's 11 now!), so I didn’t mind that bit

Dada is one of the first 'words' human babies say, or rather babble, mama comes along a bit later. I believe the theory is children randomly babble syllables and us adults lay meaning over any syllable groupings which sound like real words.

It's nothing to do with her father or your parenting - it's the hard wiring of the human brain and our language development