Baby Love Kate's Power Of Three

Royal Insiders Say It Was the Duchess of Cambridge Who Longed for Another Baby

- Vivienne Archer

As far as childhoods go, it would be hard to have a better one than the Middleton children.

Growing up in a Berkshire farmhouse, surrounded by love, opportunity and normality, Kate, Pippa and James enjoyed an idyllic start to life with their parents Michael and Carole Middleton.

“I know that I was lucky,” Kate has said of her childhood, adding that it was “wonderful and secure”.

With only two years between each of them, the siblings, dubbed “The Middleton Musketeers”, were close from the word go, and it’s these memories that the now Duchess of Cambridge has sought to recreate with her own family – royal or not.

With the addition of their third child, Kate (36) and Prince William (35) will recreate the same dynamic – age gaps and all – that the Middletons enjoyed. Royal insiders say their new baby was very much at Kate’s insistence, at least at first, despite her difficulties with hyperemesis gravidarum, which she has suffered from during every pregnancy.

“Kate always wanted more than two children, it was William that needed to be persuaded,” tells a royal source.