Baby Archie Reportedly Didn’t Meet His Cousins For Two Months After His Birth

Baby Archie, or more officially Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, Earl of Dumbarton, didn’t meet his cousins until two months after his birth, Showbiz CheatSheet reports.

The newest member of Britain’s royal family, the son of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, was born on May 6. As is the case with all royal births, he was greeted by family, well-wishers, loved ones, the whole bit. A bit later, when the dust had settled and the proud parents were ready to reveal the young lad to the world, a royal photographer snapped a few dozen pictures and sent them to the media. And of course, he’s been greeted by his parents’ team of nannies and childcare workers.

But he reportedly didn’t meet one group of people until months after he was born: his cousins, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis. Royal expert Emily Andrews tells Yahoo’s Royal Box that the four kids didn’t meet until a much-publicized July 10 polo match.

“They hadn’t actually met him for two months, so that polo match was lovely,” she said.

That’s not to say that Archie hadn’t met his aunt and uncle, Prince William and Kate Middleton, before that. William made it clear that he and Kate were excited to meet their nephew, and meet him they did. William even joked with the media that he was proud to welcome his brother to the “sleep deprivation society that is parenting.”

From @MaxFosterCNN: Meghan and Harry have elected not to use courtesy titles at this time for their son, though he will automatically become "Prince Archie Harrison" when Charles becomes King https://t.co/CDScy0HY3z pic.twitter.com/18rYveFPpB

— CNN (@CNN) May 8, 2019

So why did they wait?

The answer to that question is known only to Meghan and Harry. It could very well be that the two families’ schedules just didn’t line up in a way that allowed the cousins to meet each other. Or, as any parent with kids in daycare will tell you, little kids are harbingers of disease, and they wanted to wait for a while for Archie’s immune system to develop a little better before exposing him to other kids. After all, as Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital explains, though there’s no hard-and-fast rule about when it’s safe to take newborns out in public, “a few months” is generally a good guideline.

Or of course, as some would tell you, it was because the Harry-and-Meghan family and the William-and-Kate family aren’t getting along, and the meetup at the July 10 polo march was a carefully-designed publicity stunt orchestrated to deflect attention away from the families’ purported feud.

Body language expert Blanca Cobb, however, reviewed the footage of the event and said there’s no indication that the families aren’t getting along.