Content Warning: DDLG/CGL/ageplay-related content, kink honorifics including “Daddy,” nonsexual kink and power-exchange.
If you’re new to this concept: DDLG means daddy dom/little girl, referring to a particular power exchange dynamic between two fully consenting adults; CGL is the gender-neutral version, which we prefer, and stands for caregiver/little. I use both for search engine optimization reasons.
Spend some time in the nonsexual (or even the sexual) DDLG or CGL communities on Tumblr or elsewhere, and you will be inundated with ten thousand coloring pages. People love showing off their own coloring! People love making new pages for you to color! The scent of crayons and the hypnotic sound of pencil on paper can be both soothing and nostalgic. Coloring can be fun for anyone, and for littles, it can be a really easy way to recapture a certain headspace.
But…it’s not for everyone.
I personally do really like coloring. Unfortunately, retail caused permanent damage to my wrist and hand. I can color for a little while, but if I push it too long, my hand and wrist hurt, and if I ignore that and keep going, they’re going to be useless the next day. I kinda need my hands and wrists, so this is…you know…not ideal.
For a while I used the Recolor app on my phone, and it was a great alternative! Unlike other coloring programs, it gave you a lot of room for creativity. Unfortunately, they got rid of most of their free options, so I stopped using it.
But I still like to do things that make me feel little. While I don’t consider little space to be a separate state from the rest of my being—I don’t regress, and I’m still fully aware of who I am as a grown-up type person—I do find that it’s a specific mood, as it were. I always have some aspects of all my personality, but in little space, I’m usually a little more cheerful, with a bit more wide-eyed wonder. I’m as sensitive as I am the rest of the time, but instead of getting withdrawn and grumpy, I feel tearful and cuddly. I’m as goofy as ever, but more externally expressive, bouncy and giggly. I’m just as capable of problem solving, but I’m also more likely to ask Damien for help with things, which is great because…they really like when I actually ask them for help. They feel useful!
Being in little space can help to enforce my feelings of submission, but also generally helps me feel safe and happy. Being vulnerable with someone I know I can trust is really good for me, and I carry the good feelings even outside of little space. I’ve written at length about kink as a coping mechanism, and this is a heavy part of it.
So, how do I access little space, or what do I do in little space, if I can’t color? Because we can’t always remember what to do, Damien and I have actually compiled a list or two, so that when Damien or I decide that we need a little day, we aren’t stuck staring at each other going, “So…now what?”
Creative Pursuits
I think the thing I like most about coloring is that it’s a creative outlet that isn’t too complicated. I have a picture available, so I don’t have to figure out things like “anatomy” or “making both eyes look like they’re aimed in the same direction,” but I can pick out the colors and make the image my own.
Fortunately, that isn’t the only way to be creative in a small-friendly way! For the past couple of Christmasses, my spouse has picked up some large Lego boxes—not the kits (although I’m sure some prefer them!) but the big boxes of random bricks, with a few suggestions in a pamphlet. So, I can build random things. I default to houses a lot, much as I did in my youth, but sometimes I make weird animals, parks for minifigs, random objects, or I grab Damien and we attempt to make as tall a tower as we can. (Last time we managed one that was about five feet tall, which is impressive as I’m not much taller than that)
I also sometimes do pixel dolls when I want to feel little. For those of you who weren’t in niche online communities in 2004, pixel dolls are a digital artform where you take a doll base and you draw on clothes and hair. (Here’s a link to my FurAffinity gallery of pixel art, if anyone’s curious! Most have links to the bases.) I often change the face entirely as well, though not always. It offers a lot of what I like about coloring—the creativity without stress, the meditative focus on details—but it’s a lot easier on my wrists.
Sometimes we also fold a page in half and draw the top and bottom of a monster, or I make weird animals out of pompoms and googly eyes. I have a small collection of Asian ball-jointed dolls, and sometimes when I’m making simple crafts for them (like a pompom rug for their room set-up) I find myself slipping into little space without noticing. (Sewing, however, never puts me into little space. Sewing is terrible.)
Baking
A lot of what makes me feel little is that tinge of nostalgia. My childhood was…weird…but sometimes, reclaiming the better memories I have and reapplying them to my current self, with my partner as my caregiver, makes me feel good and safe. And some of my fondest memories of childhood are of baking with various adult figures.
I cook everyday, but baking is a different vibe, and baking with my spouse is even different from that. They take charge, and relegate me to easy tasks, like fetching utensils, or measuring out ingredients. (I dare you to find me anything more enjoyable than scooping up brown sugar and dropping it into the bowl in the shape of the cup. It’s like making a sandcastle, except you can eat it later.) To ensure that I feel small they’ll occasionally tell me that I’m too little to put the cookie tray in the oven, or if I do, that they absolutely have to supervise. The “Daddy has to supervise” line is really useful when Damien is not feeling well but still wants to make it clear that they’re in charge, and that I need to rely on them.
And at the end, we have cookies, or cupcakes! Even in little space I can’t eat a lot of sweets without my stomach rebelling, but freshly baked chocolate chip cookies? I never run out of room for those.
Toys & Games
No, not the toys I usually talk about on this blog, although if you want to browse my reviews feel free. I am talking about…literal, actual toys. These can range quite a lot!
One of my favorite fun little activities is putting together children’s jigsaw puzzles. Even in full-on adult mode, I don’t really have the patience for a proper jigsaw puzzle, but if it’s less than 100 pieces? I get a ridiculous, childlike glee from finding each piece and putting together a Disney princess or the Avengers. This is also a really easy, inexpensive option: we got several cute puzzles at Dollar Tree for a literal dollar each, and obviously they can be used over and over again. Also, I’m kind of bad at them, so it’s another activity where I “need” Daddy’s help, which is always good for putting us both in the right headspace.
Plushies and My Little Ponies are fun as well; I personally prefer the older style of MLP, rather than the Friendship is Magic ones, probably because the latter lack the nostalgia that’s key to so much of my littleness, but also because…I just like their faces better. Other classic vintage games like Pick Up Sticks is also great!
Playing classic childhood board games like Candyland or Mouse Trap is also a lot of fun, and as a bonus, we can include my metamour without me feeling weird about it. My little space is pretty private for the most part due to how vulnerable I feel when I’m in it, and I don’t always like having people other than my spouse seeing me in that state. But it doesn’t bother me too much if there’s something else to focus on. One of my household’s favorite things to do is to play a digital version of the Game of Life, which my metamour has on his phone. We project it to our Fire TV stick so everyone can see it on our screen, and usually play a couple of rounds.
When I’m feeling little and either want to be alone a bit, or Damien isn’t able to play, sometimes I try to play phone games, but truth be told, I haven’t found any that make me feel “little” that I’ve been able to stick with for very long! Sometimes the odd cute match 3 game will do it for me, but usually they’re so littered with ads that I end up getting out of it.
But, speaking of streaming things on the TV…
Movies & TV Shows
Okay, the obvious answer is Disney. Find me a CGL blog that doesn’t mention Disney movies, I dare you. Personally, I tend to prefer the Disney cartoons that I watched growing up (big surprise there) like Aladdin or The Rescuers; more recent ones like Frozen are fun, but don’t always have quite the right effect on me.
But Disney is not our limit! I’ve actually found that one of the best ways to make me feel little and submissive is to find me some of the live-action fantasy movies from the 80s. Willow, The Princess Bride, Labyrinth—I didn’t even watch all of those as a kid, but something about the tone of them, the optimism, the stop-motion effects, all manage to get me into that state of total wonder and innocence.
Well, sometimes my feelings about Labyrinth aren’t exactly innocent, but that’s beside the point.
I also love watching certain cartoons in little space, but I’m picky as fuck. Even as an actual kid, I didn’t really like a lot of cartoons that “talk down” to their audience, and they’re even worse now that I have an adult brain. Hands down, my favorites tend to be more plot-heavy superhero-type cartoons. My favorites are Batman: The Animated Series, Batman Beyond, Gargoyles, and Sailor Moon, although I need to restart Avatar: The Last Airbender again, because that’s definitely got the right vibe!
Story Time
One of my favorite things to do in little space—especially if I’m not feeling well—is to have Damien read to me, and they really like doing it. Sometimes before bed, we’ll pick some random topics and they’ll read from the Wikipedia entries, which is surprisingly fun and extremely nerdy. But sometimes they’ll have me pick out a book and read to me from it every now and again until it’s time for a new one. I usually end up picking some juvenile novels. Lately I’ve been on a Bruce Coville kick, and at the moment they’re reading me The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed. We’ve also read some picture books, Behind the Attic Wall by Sylvia Cassidy, and we started Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland at some point but lost it for several months. Whoops.
Miscellaneous
Honestly, I can’t really tell you all the fun things we do when I’m feeling little, or I need to feel little, in just the length of a single post, and we always come up with new ideas! Sometimes we put together cute bento boxes, or go to play in the woods. Sometimes Damien gets me to sit still long enough to paint my nails in cute colors. Even simple things like wearing a cute dress and knee-high socks, or putting on my puppy ears and tail at home will help influence me into a headspace I want. Aesthetics aren’t essential, but they can be a great shortcut!
So how about you? Do you have any special things you like to do when you’re in little space, or trying to achieve it? Is there anything you want to try? At any rate, I hope that if you’re aiming for little space (or your aiming to help someone else with theirs) that this inspired you!
Want more like this? Check out my CGL tag and my advice tag!
This post was not sponsored, and all opinions are my own.
Queer Earthling 
