I must be doing something wrong because I have the same concerns are Ali and I find that waiting too long to offer the feed (or waiting for the cues) can send everything out of whack. Let me give an example.
My DS was 5 months yesterday and we have been working on the 3hEASY-4hEASY transition for a few weeks. Some days I have had a nice 4hrly pattern but for the most part I get 4hrs between feeds in the morning, followed by 3hrly then an evening cluster (usually driven by me to facilitate tanking up). Today my son woke at 6:30 and I didn't attempt a resettle because my 3 year old was up and being loud. I did the first feed at 7 though to trying to preserve some routine. At 800 (his usual interval in the morning) he showed tired signs, self-settled quickly to sleep but only slept 45 minutes. I didn't feed on waking because the interval was only 2 hrs but I could not wait until 4 hours because he would be both hungry and tired by this point, resulting in a poor feed and probably at poor sleep as well. So we go for a walk to see if he wants to nap some more - he looked like he wanted to but didn't. I offer the the feed when we get home around the 3 hour mark so that he can finish the feed and have some A time before he gets too tired but he takes a long leisurely feed and I'm struggling to keep him awake to take a full feed. We have some quick A time and then into bed (roughly 2 hours awake at this time which is okay for him and he's looking tired). But he doesn't self-settle. I try a few rounds of shy-stroke head without success before getting him up.
He is likely to be OT now so I will need to help him to sleep at home or go for a drive. The rest of the day is likely to be impacted by the next, short OT sleep. I don't usually have trouble with settling if I put him into bed at the right time. He self settles within 20 minutes, usually within 5 or 10.
