Months ago, he started saying “Dada,” and I thought very little of it beyond “awww.” It was a pair of easy-to-vocalize syllables, one that certainly didn’t mean “Daddy.” A (female) relative suggested that dads have adopted the term because their children could say it so early, and I agree with her. If a typical first word were “turnip,” we fathers would all be naming ourselves after root vegetables.
Lately, though, I don’t think that’s true. He often says it with intent, while looking at me. Dada = daddy, for real, maybe. But there’s one thing he almost never says, and that’s “mama.” Occasionally he’ll run off a few chattery syllables that include those, but not reliably or consistently.
This puzzles me. I don’t like to say it, but–like virtually all babies–he’s likely to be more deeply bonded with his mother than with me. I’m by no means an absent dad, but I work late at least a couple of days per week, and I don’t do much breastfeeding. He just gets more time with her, and a substantial amount of that time is spent in close physical contact. Why does he not have a word for her?
The answer I come up with is that I’m dreaming. “Dada” isn’t me. It could just as soon be the cat, or a blanket, or that shape-sorter toy he likes. I just want him to say it, because, like all dadas, I turn melty when he does. He’ll come around soon enough.
It’s not at all uncommon for Dada to come first. My theory is that because mom is always there she’s not even a separate person yet as far as he’s concerned. It’s also possible that he’s responding to how you respond when he calls you Dada. In any case, don’t worry about it, just enjoy it.
It’s fun to compare my kid with yours, given they were born on the same day. Hank said Mama first, but in that same “well aren’t these syllables fun to say” way. Then Mama seemed to designate a call for help that was mainly aimed at me, the one who typically gets him from the crib and the one who nurses him. Then Mama disappeared. When he says it now it seems accidental.
When Dada came, it was definitely intentional and aimed at my partner. And he, my partner, gets all the excited “Dada!”s when he’s around, and the concerned “Dada?”s when not around. He even gets the only word-pairs we’ve heard so far, “HI DADA” and “Dada night night?” I get NOTHING. Mama is not part of Hank’s vocabulary as of like, months and months ago. So we’re not sure if he ever really used it to refer to me at all. It’s all Dada, all the time.
Kristin (above)’s theory seems to be right on the money. My partner speculates that Hank has a word for him because he comes and goes more, and thus is a more notable “thing” separate from himself, needing a name. So depending on how you look at it, it’s awesome! Your kid is more interested in you! or, it’s sad! It’s cause you’re never around! Neither parent seems to win in this one, getting us used to the impending rejection of “No, I only want Mama to read me a story” or “Only Dada can sit next to me” etc.
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“It’s also possible that he’s responding to how you respond when he calls you Dada.”
This is my guess. He happened upon the two syllables ‘dada’ and you got excited. He kept saying it to get you excited and then came to associate it with you. The same might happen with mama.
Of course, the theory that ‘mama’ isn’t a totally separate being is intriguing as well. My little girl came up with mama awhile back (in fact it is the sound that come out when she is most upset) but only recently came to ‘dada.’ My wife works full-time and I work from home and watch the girl. Though, in our case, the ‘d’ sound wasn’t even present until just a few weeks ago (a good long time after she started saying mama) so she couldn’t really have chanced upon ‘dada’ in the first place.