your fingers do get longer as a matter of fact if you do fingerexercises every day, and yes I know it 's boring but it really helped for me,
and also if you want to barre you put your index finger on the fret and then roll it just behind the fret so you are actually pressing with almost the side of your finger.
the exercises I do are
simply playing fret 12 then 123 then 1234 then 13 then 14 on all of the strings, this makes your fingers stronger and helps stretch them furhter.
lots of fun
lorinda