There are few things more exciting than having your first baby. Sentinel journalist Catherine Ball, aged 29, who lives in Newcastle, gave birth to Sophie, at 3.35pm on Friday, March 27. She is sharing her experiences in a weekly blog... Sophie is now 29 weeks old.

As winter starts to draw in, there's a new challenge – how to keep baby warm. Or more specifically how to keep Sophie's feet warm.

Ever since birth she has rejected attempts to put her feet in socks, shoes or bootees preferring to go barefoot like a tiny Joni Mitchell.

Most of my attempts to clothe her feet have gone something like this: wrestle for 20 minutes to grab her feet while she plays a fun kick mummy in the tummy game, get a sock and shoe on one foot only to have her take it off while I'm busy doing the other one – repeat this step several times until finally both feet are covered. Breathe a sigh of relief and make way to door. Get outside and then glance down to see both Sophie's feet naked and said socks and shoes lying discarded on the floor.

When she was really small this problem was tackled simply by putting her in all in one baby-gros with feet in them. But this rather limits your choices in outfit particularly now she's getting older.

None of this was a problem in summer as I'm a great believer that going barefoot is quite good for the feet. But now it's getting pretty nippy I'm aware that some people are tutting at the sight of Sophie's tiny tootsies exposed to the elements.

I have started working on solutions – I've bought a few pairs of baby tights. They're a devil to get on but thankfully even harder for her to get off. The worst case scenario is she manages to get some floppy extra feet at the end or some Nora Batty style wrinkles as a result of her pulling efforts.

For really cold days we've now got a big fluffy snowsuit. It makes her look a bit like a teddy and even more cuddly than usual. She's still a bit bemused by it as it includes big chunky mittens which stop her being able to grab onto her buggy toys but at least she's snug.

And I've just bought another possible solution – some strange little elastic things that go over the socks to hold them on. I've not used them yet but I spotted them in Mothercare claiming to solve just our dilemma. It's the sort of thing I can imagine being on Dragon's Den as clearly Sophie's not the only baby who loses her socks just moments after they're put on.

Sadly I don't think there's such an easy solution to the cold dark evenings making it even harder to get up in the middle of the night when Sophie gets insomnia.