[Jay22222]

I’ve known I was a little for a while now, and last year I was finally financially secure enough to buy myself a little dollhouse, with cute little dolls, and a pile of adorable furniture~! I love getting to set it up and put the dolls in little poses, but I can’t PLAY with it. Every time I sit down to try and play with the dolls I become really embarrassed and even a little ashamed…

I get my stuffies and my nightgown, and get in my little space, but it doesn’t help. It feels a little like… someone is watching me disapprovingly when I try. I start worrying that maybe I haven’t regressed enough, then I start worrying that maybe I haven’t regressed at all and maybe I’m not even a little! Just some childish adult or something…

A little friend of mine tried to help me, but she wasn’t little at the time, so it just ended up feeling like a grownup making fun of me, and I don’t have a caretaker or anything.

Does anyone one else have any issues like this? Or any advice preferably? I really REALLY want to play with them, I just feel like I’m not allowed too…

[donna4xp]

i'm not sure i have much advice to give.. being little and overthinking can be hard. so no, i don't think you're not a little. i just think you've been alone too long in this and have been hiding away from many parts of yourself, so i guess now you're just used to what used to be "normal".

i think the hard part comes in when you have to remind yourself that this is normal, that there's a whole community of people just like you yet somehow are all different as well. we may not be with you physically (which sucks), but we're all dropping into little space and finding our way through all these harsh turns
i do think finding someone to share the space with you until you're comfortable being alone is a good idea. they don't have to be little, just accepting. and they could do their own coping thing while you do yours.
or maybe try talk to a stuffie.. i do it all the time. just continue talking, even if it's mentally, until you get lost in the conversation. then do an activity with them without even thinking about it.
YOU GOT THIS and you deserve to play !!

[LittleSamantha]

if it's such a issue than start by playing with them OUT of littlespace,first. just grab all your doll stuff while still in your normal clothes and adult mindset and just start fiddling around with them,come up with really basic scenarios like one doll having a normal conversation with another one or play out something that actually happened but use the dolls in place of people,give the dolls simple names if they don't have any ect. the more you get used to playing with then as a whole,the more used to playing with them in littlespace will be because now you'll have some experience and it won't feel so weird.

[HaileyRandle]

Honestly? Playing pretend takes practice! I still have a hard time playing with my dolls, and even then I'm extreamly non verbal. baby steps (pun intended) try just setting them up, then take it apart and set them up again. Then maybe Cary your dolls around, let them watch TV, pretend there are shows they like and don't like. Try feeding them, maybe some of them like to eat, and some of them are self conscious about eating in front of you. It's going to be hard, but nothing worth doing is easy.

[Ridi]

Nonono nooo no! Practicing is dumb advice. If you have to force yourself in to learning how to play with something then that’s not part of you being little. That’s you wanting to make yourself be something you’re not. If you have to learn how to be little then you’re not a little

And not every thing you think would make you more little is things you want to do and that’s normal and you shouldn’t be trying to make it happen if it’s not natural to you

Truth is there is alot of stuff you’ll wish you could do or be again when you see bio kids do it or remember the fun you had as a bio kid. Some of that is just naturally gone tho and making yourself do it in the thought you retraining yourself to enjoy a regressed thing again isn’t going to truly truly work. Just enjoy the thoughts and memory’s you have and let that be enough. Set up the doll house and dolls and just enjoy your thoughts and the visual. You don’t have to act it all out to enjoy it. You don’t have to bring your fantasy mind into being your reality

A lot of being a little is just feelings or thoughts but not 100% acting it all out. Let yourself be enough and enjoy who you actually are instead of wishing you were different or more this way than that way

[LittleSamantha]

If you have to learn how to be little then you’re not a little

excuse you,who made YOU the end all/be all of what's little and what is not? sorry to break your little self-important fantasy but sometimes it's hard to get back into the headspace of a kid while being a full grown adult due to now having a bigger brain,bigger body and more experience as a whole and most people can't just shut it all off on a whim. needing to relearn how to do something (or perhaps learn how to in the first place. ever think that they might just not have learned how to play with dolls when they were a actual kid for whatever reason?) doesn't make you ANY less of a little and you have ZERO right to be judging the validity of how someone enters littlespace or say "you're not a REAL little unless you can turn into a 3 year old on command" like it's some kind of party trick. if having sex while in littlespace or regressing into a teenager is ok than so is adjusting to something new and i'll be damned if i let you make someone's problem worse with your obvious gatekeeping nonsense.

[Ridi]

If you have to learn how to be little then you’re not a little

excuse you,who made YOU the end all/be all of what's little and what is not? sorry to break your little self-important fantasy but sometimes it's hard to get back into the headspace of a kid while being a full grown adult due to now having a bigger brain,bigger body and more experience as a whole and most people can't just shut it all off on a whim. needing to relearn how to do something (or perhaps learn how to in the first place. ever think that they might just not have learned how to play with dolls when they were a actual kid for whatever reason?) doesn't make you ANY less of a little and you have ZERO right to be judging the validity of how someone enters littlespace or say "you're not a REAL little unless you can turn into a 3 year old on command" like it's some kind of party trick. if having sex while in littlespace or regressing into a teenager is ok than so is adjusting to something new and i'll be damned if i let you make someone's problem worse with your obvious gatekeeping nonsense.

So your saying being little is something you choose to do and something you can learn to do, not a part of who you naturally just are?

If you have to learn how to do something you don’t naturally do when your little then that isn’t a real part of your little space, it’s that simple

Listen to what your saying. It isn’t gatekeeping to have qualifications

Op can be a little but playing with dolls obv isn’t a little thing for them. They can’t just make that happen if that naturally doesn’t make them feel little again

[LittleSamantha]

If you have to learn how to be little then you’re not a little

excuse you,who made YOU the end all/be all of what's little and what is not? sorry to break your little self-important fantasy but sometimes it's hard to get back into the headspace of a kid while being a full grown adult due to now having a bigger brain,bigger body and more experience as a whole and most people can't just shut it all off on a whim. needing to relearn how to do something (or perhaps learn how to in the first place. ever think that they might just not have learned how to play with dolls when they were a actual kid for whatever reason?) doesn't make you ANY less of a little and you have ZERO right to be judging the validity of how someone enters littlespace or say "you're not a REAL little unless you can turn into a 3 year old on command" like it's some kind of party trick. if having sex while in littlespace or regressing into a teenager is ok than so is adjusting to something new and i'll be damned if i let you make someone's problem worse with your obvious gatekeeping nonsense.

So your saying being little is something you choose to do and something you can learn to do, not a part of who you naturally just are?

If you have to learn how to do something you don’t naturally do when your little then that isn’t a real part of your little space, it’s that simple

Listen to what your saying. It isn’t gatekeeping to have qualifications

Op can be a little but playing with dolls obv isn’t a little thing for them. They can’t just make that happen if that naturally doesn’t make them feel little again

no,what i'm saying is that being little is a personality type not some mental disorder: some people simply want,for one reason of another to live as a certain age and some are lucky enough to be able totally shift their mind set to do it. i was never good a playing with toys even when i actually WERE a kid and yet i'm still here because i happen to have a affinity for child-like things and trust me NONE of it is out of nostalgia. NOTHING we do is "natural". it is not "natural" for grown adults to be playing with baby blocks or wanting to be fed from plastic spoon. it is not "natural" to regress to a age when you're are both helpless and totally useless to your species because you haven't gotten the skills yet to survive on your own and procreate so that the species can continue. not a single bit of anything we do here is "natural" but we do it because people are complex beings and simple nature doesn't always have to be a factor so if someone is struggling to FIGHT nature by playing with dollies in the context of being a little than either offer REAL advice on how to go about doing it or let them figure it out but don't go huffing around like you know everything because i can assure you that you don't. also you have no right to just assume that this person just simply "isn't meant" for dolls by trying to play with them in littlespace: if it weren't a part of their little self to be a doll lover then they wouldn't even be trying to play with them in the first place. the problem is obviously not that their little self is rejecting the idea (or whatever nonsense you're trying to imply by that) but rather the problem is that they haven't found a way yet to do it in a grown up body and not feel weird about it. the desire is FAR more important than the result when it comes to this stuff because every last one of us is acting out desire and NONE of us will ever get it 100% right: i don't care how much you regress. so yes,what you are doing is attempting to gatekeep (as well as attempt to hide your attempt to gatekeep) littledom by saying that "if you can't do this,this or this it's not part of your littlespace" when you know absolutely nothing about the person you're talking about much less how they interact as a little and pretending that we're not all a bunch of weirdos and yes,sometimes it feels weird to do something like that no matter HOW much you still want to do it (take it from someone that went to a live playhouse disney show in disney world back in middle school and had to be hit with the harsh realization of being the biggest person in there that wasn't with a toddler: i loved playhouse disney and still do but that didn't make me feel any less firetrucking weird about being there and same thing applies to when i couldn't fit on the swings at jellystone anymore and i'm someone until just last year had a swing set in the backyard and only stopped because it kept breaking and i almost broke my finger last time it did) but if we all just gave up under the excuse of "it's just not for you" then this site wouldn't even exist much less the vast majority of littles/adult babies . it's gatekeeping simply to assume you know enough about everyone else's lives and experiences to tell them what is and isn't for them. you have no right to tell anyone what they can and can't do or for what reasons and to attempt to do so is,indeed gatekeeping and had you have simply said "maybe playing with dolls just isn't your thing" or something of the like then that would be fine and we wouldn't be here right now because you're just stating your personal theory on the topic but pretending that you know someone well enough to say with such 100% certainty that it's not "natural" for them just because they struggle (you clearly don't even know what it means for something to be natural in the first place: do you honestly think a fox is just BORN knowing how to hunt a rabbit? no,they have to learn that snailpoop like every other fox and if they don't then they'll one day starve to death no matter how natural rabbit hunting is) to learn something or get used to something is 100% pure gatekeeping,plain and simple.