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<div>@Sandie I am also short (5’3″) and have small short stubby fingers too!! I am always so envious of all those tall people with really long cello fingers, ha!! But there’s plenty of great guitar players with very short fingers who overcome with technique… For inspiration I’d suggest looking for Muriel Anderson on YouTube. (She was the first ever female to win the annual International Fingerstyle Championship in Winfield KS).</div>
Anywayz take a look and notice her ergonomics and technique. She’s amazing!!
If you don’t already, consider taking just a few lessons in person with a guitar teacher. It’s worth it to get on the right track with your posture and good fretting technique.
Another suggestion is to tune down your guitar a full step. Instead of EADGBe, tune it to DGCFAd. This will decrease your string tension markedly, and will make it easier for your fretting hand to produce good tone. Also put your capo on the 2nd fret. This will put you back in standard tuning in case you are playing with others, but it will also help reduce the space between the strings and the frets. (The action). This also makes it easier on your fretting hand. And the last thing using a capo does for you, is that now the frets aren’t as far apart, which again makes it easier on your fretting hand. Ahhhhhhhhh what a relief!! You will be able to play with much less tension in your hands and should be able to get things into your muscle memory a little easier and enjoy playing and learning a little more!!
Best wishes, Carol