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This image taken by Michael Middleton, the Duchess's father, in early August 2013 and supplied by Kensington Palace, shows the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with their son, Prince George, in the garden of the Middleton family home in Bucklebury, England, with Tilly the retriever, seen left, a Middleton family pet, and Lupo, the couple's cocker spaniel. (AP)
Prince William has described his newborn son George as a “bit of a rascal” and admitted that fatherhood has changed him already. In his first interview since the birth on July 22, the British prince said he and Catherine were enjoying their new role as parents, but admitted the new arrival was keeping them on their toes.
And he said his smooth fitting of the child car seat before driving his wife and son home from the hospital was the result of careful practice.
Speaking to CNN about George’s character in an interview shown Monday, William said: “He’s a little bit of a rascal, I’ll put it that way.
“He either reminds me of my brother or me when I was younger, I'm not sure, but he’s doing very well at the moment."
William described George as a “little fighter”.
“He wriggles around quite a lot,” he said. “And he doesn’t want to go to sleep that much, which is a little bit of a problem.”
William, 31, who is second in line to the throne, admitted he does not get up in the night to tend to the baby as much as his wife and said she was doing a “fantastic job”.
He said fatherhood has already changed his outlook on life.
“I think the last few weeks for me have been just a very different emotional experience,” he said.
“Something I never thought I would feel myself. And I find, again it’s only been a short period, but a lot of things affect me differently now.”
Asked about the moment he and Kate brought George out of the hospital in London and faced the world’s cameras for the first time, William said they were just happy the baby did not “scream his head off”.
“I was on such a high anyway,” he said. “As any new parent knows, you’re only too happy to show off your new child and proclaim that he is the best-looking or the best everything.
“It’s nice that people want to see George, so I’m just glad he wasn't screaming his head off the whole way through.”
William made a point of driving his wife and son home from the hospital, but joked he was “terrified” he would mess up attaching the baby’s car seat into the back of the vehicle as the press looked on.
He said: “I know there’s been speculation about that. I had to practice, I really did. I was terrified that I was going to do some... it was going to fall off or it wasn’t going to close properly.
“So, I had actually practised with that seat, but only once.”
William said it was important to him to be able to drive his family away from the hospital, as a way of showing his modern face.
“Where I can be, I am as independent as I want to be. And same as Catherine and Harry,” he said.
“We’ve all grown up differently to other generations. And I very much feel if I can do it myself, I want to do it myself. And there are times where you can’t do it yourself and the system takes over or it’s appropriate to do things differently.
“Driving your son and your wife away from hospital was really important to me. And I don’t like fuss so it’s much easier to just do it yourself.”
William said last week he and his family will leave their home on the Welsh island of Anglesey when his posting as a search and rescue helicopter pilot with the Royal Air Force finishes next month.
He is widely expected to return to London to take on more royal duties from the 87-year-old Queen Elizabeth II.
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