An 11-month-old typically needs 3 to 4 bottles of formula per day, with each bottle holding about 6 to 7 ounces. That puts total daily intake around 24 ounces (720 mL), which supplies roughly 400 to 500 of the 750 to 900 calories your baby needs at this age. The rest comes from solid foods, which by now should be a regular part of every meal.
Daily Bottle Amounts for Formula and Breastmilk
For formula-fed babies, the standard recommendation at 10 to 12 months is 6 to 7 ounces every 4 to 6 hours, which works out to 3 or 4 bottles spread across the day. Most babies settle into a rhythm where bottles happen in the morning, midday, afternoon, and sometimes before bed.
Breastfed babies at this age typically nurse about 4 times in 24 hours, though the exact volume per session varies. If you’re pumping and offering breastmilk in bottles, aiming for roughly 24 ounces total across the day is a reasonable target. The key number to keep in mind: about half your baby’s daily calories should still come from breastmilk or formula, with solid foods covering the other half.
How Bottles Fit Around Solid Meals
At 11 months, your baby should be eating or drinking something every 2 to 3 hours, which adds up to about 5 or 6 feeding opportunities per day. A typical day looks like 3 solid meals plus 2 to 3 snacks or bottles in between. Some parents offer the bottle first and then solids 30 minutes later; others do the reverse. Either approach works, but offering solids when your baby is genuinely hungry (rather than right after a full bottle) helps them accept a wider range of foods.
A simple daily pattern might look like this:
- Morning: Bottle, followed by breakfast solids
- Midday: Lunch solids with water in a cup, then a bottle
- Afternoon: Snack (soft fruit, small pieces of toast, or yogurt)
- Evening: Dinner solids, then a bottle before bed
This gives you 3 bottles and 3 meals, with a snack filling the gap. Some babies still want a fourth bottle, and that’s fine as long as total milk intake stays close to 24 ounces.
Too Much Milk Can Cause Problems
It might seem like more milk equals better nutrition, but going over 24 ounces a day can actually backfire. Babies who fill up on milk tend to eat less solid food, and that creates a real risk of iron deficiency. Breastmilk and formula contain some iron, but by 11 months your baby’s iron stores from birth are largely used up, and they need iron-rich solids (meat, beans, fortified cereals) to keep up.
Cow’s milk is an even bigger concern. It should not be introduced before 12 months. Before that age, cow’s milk has too many proteins and minerals for your baby’s kidneys to handle, doesn’t contain the right balance of nutrients, and can even cause intestinal bleeding. Stick with breastmilk or formula until your baby turns one.
What About Night Bottles?
Formula-fed babies over 6 months are unlikely to wake at night because they’re genuinely hungry, since formula digests slowly enough to keep them satisfied. If your baby is still getting a nighttime bottle out of habit, 11 months is a reasonable time to start phasing it out.
One practical approach: if the night bottle is more than 2 ounces, reduce the amount by about an ounce every other night. Once you’re down to 2 ounces or less, you can stop the feed entirely and use other settling techniques. For breastfed babies, the same gradual reduction works, but cutting nursing time by 2 to 5 minutes every couple of nights instead of measuring volume. There’s no urgency here. If nighttime feeding is working for your family, it’s perfectly fine to continue.
Starting the Switch From Bottles to Cups
Eleven months is a good time to start practicing with cups, even if bottles remain the primary way your baby drinks milk. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends introducing a cup when solids begin (around 6 months) and completing the transition away from bottles sometime between 12 and 18 months. If you haven’t started yet, you’re not behind, but building the habit now makes the eventual switch easier.
You can use a sippy cup with a simple spout (no valve), a straw cup, or even an open cup. Two-handled cups help small hands grip more easily. Start by putting breastmilk or formula in the cup at mealtimes so the taste is familiar. Over the coming weeks, you can gradually shift one bottle at a time to a cup, starting with whichever feeding your baby seems least attached to. Mealtime bottles are usually the easiest to replace first; the bedtime bottle tends to be the last to go.
Signs Your Baby Is Getting Enough
The simplest indicator is steady weight gain. Your pediatrician tracks this at well-child visits, but between appointments, a few signs tell you things are on track: your baby seems alert and active when awake, produces at least 6 wet diapers in 24 hours, and shows interest in food at mealtimes. If your baby is consistently refusing bottles or, on the flip side, draining every bottle and still seeming hungry, adjusting the balance between milk and solids usually solves the problem before it becomes a nutritional concern.