to think that the four hour gap between birth and announcement...

[northlight]

was a bit much. I can quite see that the parents would want an hour or even two before they let the world in, so to speak, but the family do hold the position they do and this was also a public event. It was only an announcement, there was no expectation that the father would emerge to speak to the waiting press and it would not have affected their time with the baby in any way.

Was it a pop at the press? Understandable, given the history but there were ordinary people waiting outside the palace in the heat and it seems perverse to miss the early evening news slots.

In the interests of full disclosure, I'm not a monarchist but it's the institution, not the people, I dislike. Does anyone else find this a little off?

Are you in fact Kay Burley, OP?

there were ordinary people waiting outside the palace in the heat

The poor dears.

The ways it's going to go is:

Impatience to find out the name
Details on the christening - godparents, venue, time, guest lists etc
Kate and her baby weight
Kate and her clothes
Is Kate a good mum

The vipers will be out to get them.

I wish them all the best and have faith that they'll do it 'their' way and ignore all the nasty critisim that's coming their way.

FFS it's not a sodding FB announcement

OP is so right, they so should have Facebooked it straight away!! Ffs

Ha scumbag nice x post!

Are you purposefully finding stupid little things to pick at?

They had four hours as a little family with no intrusion.

there were ordinary people waiting outside the palace in the heat

Their choice...

For goodness sake. The poor bloody woman was giving birth, no doubt extremely aware that the entire world was gagging to know the exact status of her vagina at every moment, and you grudge her, both of them, a measly four hours to do what every other family has a right to expect when they first set eyes on their baby?

People get het up enough about their own family wanting updates, and various MNers have been advised to withhold birth announcements in order to ensure a bit of bonding time before family descend on them. And if people are stupid enough to hang around outside a hospital where a woman is in labour, they can bloody well wait until that woman feels up to releasing information.

They will never have a minute's peace from now on. She will never be able to make a single patenting decision without being criticised left, right and centre.

MN is incredibly vocal about the rights of women in and after childbirth - just look at the recent Bounty campaign - and Kate is, when all is said and done, just another new mother. A little support for her right to have the postnatal experience she wants wouldn't go amiss.

Four hours? If they'd taken four days I wouldn't blame them.

In fact, I think it was pretty rude of them not to allow us to let the BBC have live feed in the delivery room.

No actually, I think it's lovely that they had that time to themselves. The media will be all over them for the next little while, I can't see how anyone could begrudge them a few hours to enjoy their new baby in peace.

And tbh I can't really see how anyone could find the energy to care that much. Where you holding your breath waiting OP? Maybe you need to get out more in that case.

I should imagine they wanted to check over the baby and Kate first, really quite thoroughly. And then tell Queenie, the Middletons and other family members. And then tell the PM and other Commonwealth heads. And so on.

4 hrs is really not very long.

How in the name of god was it a 'public event'???

He is Will and Kate's son, they can release the news to the world whenever the heck they like.

I overheard someone moaning at school yesterday afternoon about Kate being selfish for not leaving the hospital earlier. Madness!

I'm sure it's been said but there may be many reasons why you wouldn't want to announce a birth the second the baby comes out- in really practical terms you are still in labour if you have a natural delivery of the afterbirth, possible surgery, I was still being sick for about 45 min afterwards, first breastfeed, then phoning the relatives who you want to tell in person before you tell the world's media. All that type of stuff would take about 4 hours. Why should William not have had the pleasure of telling his own dad about the new baby rather than just had it announced on the news?

I wasn't much fussed about the royal baby thing, but the gap between the birth and the announcement gave me a smile.

Good for them. Good for William and Kate. It's none of our goddamn business anyway, why the hell is it a 'public event'? He's someone's baby, not a public display.

And feeling sorry for those idiots who waited outside the hospital - really? They chose to be there, they could have gone home at any point.

Yabu.

As others have said, if people are idiotic enough to hang around for hours in a heatwave just for a glimpse of a baby that's not a member of their family or a close friend then I think that's their lookout. I can't understand it at all - I would call myself a Royalist but the hysteria surrounding these occasions does baffle me.

As public figures I do think the Royals 'owe' us a certain amount (and that's what they did - some photos, a few questions etc) but this needs to be balanced with a bit of respect for their privacy so I think 4 hours was about right.

That's the other thing - why should William have to leave his new baby and his postpartum wife, just to go and make all the relevant announcements?

It was a couple of hours before DS1's very straightforward birth was communicated to his grandparents, just because of all the faffing about with breastfeeding, a shower, problems with finding a room to move us to etc

If anything I'm surprised it wasn't a lot longer. The little boy is now public property, at least his DPs had a precious four hours to claim him all to themselves.

It wasn't a public event. And all those people waiting outside in the heat obviously had a choice whether to be there or not. You sound really odd.

I knew someone would say this!

I agree with Tyler.

What difference does it make? Has anyone been disadvantaged by the 'delay' in announcing the birth? And since we have no idea what was going on in those 4 hours, how can anyone say it was unreasonable?

I've referred to my birth on another thread: but it was over an hour before they were done putting stitches into me and I first got a proper cuddle with DS. So then an hour or two for quiet cuddles and possibly bf.

That would be three hours before starting to make announcements, speaking to all the GPs, getting a formal message to the Queen and making a public announcement.

Four hours is perfectly reasonable. They had other things going on.

YABVU and a little nuts too....

I think that some of you are responding to my post as if I had suggested that the child should be held aloft on the balcony immediately he was born.
You might note that I said that I understood that they would not want to let the world in immediately and that it was understandable that they did not want to dance to the press's tune.
FWIW I hope that they are now left well alone, much as they have been while in Wales. Since I don't buy the kind of magazines or newspapers that stoke the public hunger for news of the royals, I don't feel culpable for the feeding frenzy. I didn't bother to find out about the birth until this morning.
Yes, I know it's my own fault for posting on AIBU.