Born on 21 January 2004 at 9:13 am in The National Hospital, part of the Oslo University Hospital in Oslo, Princess Ingrid Alexandra is the first child and only daughter of Crown Prince Haakon, heir apparent to the throne, and the second granddaughter of King Harald V and Queen Sonja. Her mother, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, has a son named Marius Borg Høiby, born in 1997 from a previous relationship. Following Ingrid Alexandra’s birth, the already well-regarded royal family experienced an upsurge of popularity.

Ingrid Alexandra was baptised by Bishop Gunnar Stålsett in the chapel of the Royal Palace on 17 April 2004. Her grandfather the King, her aunt Princess Märtha Louise, the Crown Prince of Denmark, the Crown Princess of Sweden, the then Prince of Asturias, and her maternal grandmother Marit Tjessem were her godparents. The Crown Prince of Denmark and the Prince of Asturias were unable to attend the christening due to their respective weddings scheduled to occur within a month of the christening.

Ingrid Alexandra started her first day of school on 19 August 2010 at Jansløkka elementary school, a local state school attended by her half-brother. Her parents chose the school because they wanted her to have as ordinary a childhood as possible. Newspaper reports said Princess Ingrid Alexandra would walk to school with her half-brother, and local citizens could expect to see her occasionally out in the community with her classmates on school outings. School officials hoped to make the school a place where the princess could make friends and enjoy some relief from public scrutiny.

On 19 June 2010, Princess Ingrid Alexandra served as a bridesmaid at the wedding of her godmother, the Crown Princess of Sweden. In December 2012, the Princess attended an interview with her father by a Norwegian television programme in aid of Environmental Agents, the children’s environmental organization. Her mother was supposed to attend, but the Crown Prince attended instead as the Crown Princess was ill. She has taken part in traditional celebrations of the Constitution Day, as well as the traditional ski jumping tournament at Holmenkollen in Oslo.

Princess Ingrid Alexandra was mentioned in a 2010 episode of The Simpsons, “Once Upon a Time in Springfield”. Lisa Simpson’s teacher, who was wearied by all of the reports by the girls of her class about various princesses as inspirational women, said there had been two reports about “baby Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway”.

On 17 June 2014, the Norwegian Royal Family notified the public that from the start of the 2014–2015 school year, Princess Ingrid Alexandra would transfer to the private English-language Oslo International School, reportedly because her parents wanted her to be fluent in English. Her younger brother, Sverre Magnus, was to transfer to Oslo’s Montessori school.

On 4 May 2015, Princess Ingrid Alexandra christened the Norwegian Rescue Company’s new lifeboat, Elias that she has been made godmother of.

In 2016, the Princess Ingrid Alexandra Sculpture Park opened in the Palace Park, with sculptures made for children and by children. The Princess takes active part herself in choosing the designs from among the contributions to the sculpture park from school children all over Norway.

On 12 February 2016, the Princess and her grandfather participated in the opening ceremony of the Winter Youth Olympics in Lillehammer. While the King declared open the Games, the Princess lit the cauldron. Her father Crown Prince Haakon did the same thing 22 years before, during the opening of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer in 1994.

On 31 August 2019, Ingrid Alexandra was confirmed in the Palace Chapel in Oslo with all her godparents present.

The Princess won a gold medal in the Norwegian surfing championship for juniors in October 2020. She is known as an avid surfer, and she also trains skiing and kickboxing.