Waking at dreamfeed

[moken]

Hi, I just started doing a dream feed last night with my 17 week old.  He was sleeping without one before from 8pm till 5am, waking to eat and then sleeping until 8am.  He's recently started to wake 5+ time a night and I've been having a hard time telling what is hunger and what is just waking.  I decided to start a dream feed at 11pm so I know that anything in the early evening is not hunger.  Last night with the dream feed he woke up as soon as I picked him up.  He's become a very light fitful sleeper.  He ate and then with a little fussing went back to sleep till 3:30am.  If he wakes at every DF then am I teaching him any kind of habitual waking?  Does anyone else's lo wake at the DF and do they find it a problem?
Thanks!

[lisi's mum]

I couldn't get the df to work - my dd went through a very light sleep phase between 10 and 11. If I gave her a df she'd wake, fall back asleep at the breast and still wake at 1ish, so I took to only feeding her if she'd woken herself.

I figured it better to let her sleep for as long a patch as she could, knowing that in the second half of the night she'd wake much more often anyway.

[RachelC]

Wow, 8-5, I wouldn't mess with that!

You can try a different time for the df... maybe adjust by 15 minutes on either side to catch him  in a different part of the sleep cycle.

Could he be going through his "4 month" growth spurt?