James Middleton’s New Book Details Kate’s Early Days Home From the Hospital With Newborn Prince George

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The moment Kate Middleton left St. Mary’s Hospital and posed for photos at the Lindo Wing with a newborn Prince George has become an iconic one in the royal family’s history — and so has the fact that she continued the tradition with her other two children after their births. But now, thanks to her brother, James Middleton, we’re getting a peek into what happened after the photos were taken and she settled in at home as a mom for the first time.

George was born in July 2013.

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At the time, she and Prince William were still living at Kensington Palace, though the Middletons lived further out from London in the country. According to what James wrote in his recent book, Meet Ella, Kate spent plenty of time at her family’s home in Bucklebury with her newborn.

She stayed with her family during parts of her pregnancy and those early days with baby George.

If William was away at work, Kate would rely on her family to help her with the new baby, much like many new moms do, and that gave her and her little brother (and his dog, Zulu) a unique opportunity to bond.

“Both of us would wander round at night, she to feed George, me to check on Zulu — and we welcomed the chance for a chat in the early hours,” James wrote, via The Daily Mail.

James and Kate had something surprising in common during that time.

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Around the time that George was born, Zulu suffered an injury after getting his head stuck in a garden gate, and at times, it made him “incontinent.” James wrote that because healing required Zulu to wear diapers, he and his sister were “changing nappies” at the same time.

 

Kate has been open about how tough that time in her life was.

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During a 2020 appearance on the Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast, Kate said the crowd waiting for her outside of the hospital after she’d just given birth was “slightly terrifying.”

“Everyone had been so supportive and both William and I were really conscious that this was something that everyone was excited about and, you know, we’re hugely grateful for the support that the public had shown us, and actually for us to be able to share that joy and appreciation with the public, I felt was really important,” she said. “But equally it was coupled with a newborn baby, and inexperienced parents, and the uncertainty of what that held, so there were all sorts of mixed emotions.”

She also admitted that it took 'a bit of time' to adjust to life as a mom.

Knowing that, it must have been especially important for her to be surrounded by her family back then.

“Particularly with your first-born baby, you think everything is going to go back to how it was,” Kate said on the podcast. “I totally underestimated the impact and the change it had on our lives from that moment really and I think, unless you’ve got children, you don’t realize. No amount of planning and preparation can get you ready for that moment.”