This article outlines the average 11-month-old baby schedule, including milk feedings for breastfeeding and formula-feeding babies, solids, naps, and nighttime sleep.
11 Month Old’s Sleep and Development
At this age, most 11 month olds can sleep through the night, without a feeding. Babies this age take 2 naps for a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours per day plus 11-12 hours at night. A very small percentage transition to one nap as early as 10 months, but not many, so assume 2 naps unless you are certain.
My eldest son did transition to one nap one week before his first birthday, so it was in the 11th month that I started seeing his morning nap get later and later. Most babies get very very overtired and sleep can spiral out of control, so I always recommend keeping two naps as long as possible.
The average age to transition to one nap is 15-18 months. My younger son seemed to start to transition to one nap around the same time, but went back to two naps within a week or two and continued taking two naps until 15 or 16 months. It makes me think my older son would have gone back to two naps, too, had I given him more time to try. Learn from me. Your 11-month-old should be taking 2 naps per day for a total of 2-3 hours per day plus 11-12 hours at night. Wake windows at this age are typically 3-4 hours at a time. If you’re having trouble with naps, you might be interested in helping your baby nap.
Although many babies can go all night without a single feeding, in my experience, some do better with one feeding after 4 or 5 a.m. and sleep longer than not feed and get an early wake-time. I would need to know your specific situation to make a recommendation, but just recognize that all babies are different. By this age, I would not expect more than one feeding, typically, if any at all. I would recommend at least an attempt at night-weaning because it is a chicken and egg problem. It’s hard to encourage more eating during the day when he is eating at night and it’s hard to discourage eating at night when he isn’t eating more during the day.
Wake Windows for 11 Month Olds
The typical wake windows for an 11-month-old are 3-4 hours. Usually, that first wake window is around 3 to 3 1/2 hours, the second window is around 3 1/2 hours, and then they stay awake 3 to 4 hours before bedtime.
11 Month Old Feeding
Breast milk or formula should be the primary nutrition for the first year and solids come secondary. Below are the amounts we recommend.
The amount of food at 11 months is very similar to 10 months, but your baby may be eating a little more.
Average amounts per day:
- At least 3-4 nursing sessions per day or 24-32 ounces formula or combination of both
- No more than 6-8 oz of water or juice (to ensure they drink enough breast milk or formula)
- 2 servings (1 serving = 1-2 Tablespoons dry) baby cereal
- 2 servings grain (1 serving = 1/2 slice bread, 2 crackers, 1/2 cup Cheerios, or 1/2 cup whole grain pasta)
- 2 servings fruit (1 serving = 3-4 Tablespoons)
- 2-3 servings vegetable (1 serving = 3-4 Tablespoons)
- 2-3 servings protein (1 serving = 1-2 Tablespoons)
- 1 serving Dairy (1 serving = 1/2 cup yogurt, 1/3 cup cottage cheese, or 1 oz grated cheese)
You can also offer cooked egg yolk (check with your doctor)
You may also be interested in homemade baby food recipes for 10 to 12 month olds.
Sample 11 month old schedule
The first schedule is what I call a “staggered” approach. My first son did better nursing fully and then had solids a bit in between nursing sessions. He was a little hungry but not famished. He just didn’t do well with stopping nursing mid-way to eat solids.
7:00 – Wake and Breast milk or Formula
9:00 – Breakfast
10:00 or 10:30 – Morning Nap (at least 1 hour)
11:00 – Breast milk or Formula plus snack
1:00 – Lunch
2:00 or 2:30 – Early Afternoon Nap (at least 1 hour)
3:00 – Breast milk or Formula plus snack
5:00 – Dinner
6:15 – Begin bedtime routine
7:00 – Breast milk or Formula and Bedtime (goal to be asleep at this time)
If your baby doesn’t mind a more “consolidated” approach to eating, like my second son, here is another type of schedule:
Schedule 2
7:00 – Wake
7:15 – Breakfast plus Breast milk / Formula feeding
9:15 – Snack
10:00 or 10:30 – Morning Nap (at least 1 hour)
12:00 – Lunch plus Breast milk / Formula feeding
2:00 or 2:30 – Afternoon Nap (at least 1 hour)
3:30 – Snack
5:00 – Dinner plus Breast milk / Formula feeding
6:15 – Begin bedtime routine
7:00 – Small BM/Formula feeding (possibly) and Bedtime (goal to be asleep at this time)
Note: When giving any feedings during your bedtime routine, be careful not to create sleep associations, which we saw become important at 4 months old.
Looking for more sample 11-month schedules?
We have over 40 sample schedules for all ages in our e-Book, Mastering Naps and Schedules. Banish naptime battles and regain control of your day (and your sanity) starting today!
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Hi there,
First time mom here. My 11 month had been falling asleep on her own since about 7 months with an8pm bedtime. The last week she’s been crying at bedtime and not wanting to go to sleep. I let her cry for about 10 minutes before I rock her until she starts falling asleep but as soon as I lay her down she cries again. I have been restarting the whole cycle again. Any suggestions? Should I change her bedtime? I worked so hard to sleep train the first time I don’t know if I can start all over ?
Hi @Lorena – Thanks for writing to us! Sorry to hear that your 11 month old has been fighting bedtimes! This can be caused by a number of things, but if you think it may be schedule related, please check out our free schedule maker to get a custom sleep schedule that’s based on her age and her morning wake-up time! Here’s the link: https://www.babysleepsite.com/baby-toddler-schedule-maker/
Hope it’s helpful Lorena! Good luck!
Hi there,
My son goes down at 7 and usually wake at 5am for a quick nurse and then we wake him at 7am. He goes down for his first nap within 2.5-3 hours of waking. I have noticed that he often takes a longer morning nap than an afternoon nap , i.e. he might sleep 1.5 hours in the morning and then only 30-45 in the afternoon. Should I wake him from a morning nap to help lengthen the afternoon nap? Definitely feel comfortable with the sleep he gets in the 24-hour period but still feel like we could be maximizing nap times better. It’s a little unpredictable with how long he will sleep for morning/afternoon (though he really seems to need the morning nap), and it would be helpful for me to have consistency.
Hi @Julia, thanks for writing to us, I’m happy to help! My son did this as well. Sometimes his morning naps would be so so long that I wouldn’t even really be able to do a second nap, but that didn’t bother my schedule (kind of worked out for me) but I know how this unpredictability could be a major inconvenience. You could certainly try waking him to see what he does! Here is a link to a free guide with tips for nap help that may give you some additional ideas: https://www.babysleepsite.com/free-baby-nap-guide/
If you want more detailed information on naps and schedules you may want to check out our ebook Mastering Naps and Schedules that you can purchase directly from our site: https://www.babysleepsite.com/mastering-naps/
I hope this helps! Please let us know if you have any other questions!
I’ll be honest, I feel spoiled after reading this and some of the comments.
My 10 1/2 month old was terrible at nursing and insisted on Co-sleeping the first 5 months but after 1-2 nights of limited cry it out, he has been sleeping peacefully through the night in his own room and bed for months now.
He usually wakes up anywhere from 7:30-7:30 but he will talk and play in his crip for 30-45 if not longer and sometimes go back to sleep until I get my lazy butt out of bed.
Once we are up, we get a new diaper and go have breakfast within 30-40 minutes of rising. He has solids first, whether it be scrambled eggs, oatmeal or yogurt and fruit just depending on what we have.
After he starts to play with his food he gets a 6oz straw cup of formula.
Once in a while he will have a snack between breakfast and morning nap but it’s pretty rare.
Morning nap time is always almost exactly 10 am.
He sleeps 1-2 hours with rain sounds playing.
When he wakes up it’s lunch time. Solids first, he’s mostly on finger/table foods. Then 6oz of formula in a straw cup or rim trainer cup. Bottles have been out of the pantry for about a month now (woo hoo)
Afternoon nap is always about 3pm (1-2 hours)
Upon waking it’s dinner time. He gets some simple snacks if I’m in the middle of making dinner but we try to keep it light to avoid spoiling dinner. As usual when he starts to play it’s time for formula.
After dinner is bath time if it’s bath day, followed by some playtime and snuggles before 7:30/8 pm bedtime.
He gets one last cup of formula about half an hour before bed.
Right now he is teething pretty hard so he does fuss a little through the night but puts himself back to sleep and usually sleeps 11-12 hours.
Times between meals are always filled with lots of play and stimulation, or at least baby chasing dog around the living room time.
We have mostly tried to avoid using nursing/milk feedings as comfort items.
As a newborn we stuck to the EASY routine which is eat,activity,sleep,your time mom.
It worked great instead of him needing to feed to fall asleep. We had some minor issues where he thought he needed to nurse after every cat nap for a short while lol.
@Holly – Thank you for sharing your little guy and your day with us! It really sounds like your little guy has a wonderful schedule together that works superbly for you both (and maybe for your dog! 🙂 ). It’s not always easy to come by that but it sounds like you know that! 🙂 Again, thank you for sharing and please keep reading!
Hello,
I pick my 11 month old up from daycare at around 5. He falls asleep in the car on the way home, and doesn’t wake until morning. Do I need to wake him when we’re home to eat.He is 25lbs and happy. He wakes up between 5:30 and 7 depending on the day. And eats within an hour of being awake. We are transitioning him from formula to table food (he won’t eat baby food). He drinks anywhere from 8 to 16 ounces of formula a day.
Hi @Chasity – Thank you for writing to us! it sounds like you’ve got a great little sleeper on your hands! Yaay! Many babies at this age do sleep through the night, which can be 12 hours (or so), and they do this without a feed. I’d suspect that he must be having a feed shortly before you pick him up, but I would recommend speaking to your baby’s doctor for specific advice based on his growth and development and caloric needs though. This way, you will have specific advice from someone who knows baby well! Good luck and thanks again for visiting!
I’m concerned my 11 month old isn’t sleeping long enough at night. We’ve tried different bedtimes, but we have found she only sleeps 10.5 hours overnight (7:30pm-6am). No matter what. She sleeps ~3.5 hours during the day, in a morning nap of 1 hour (9am) and and afternoon nap of 2.5 hours (1pm), generally.
She’s never been a sleeper, always on the low end of the spectrum when a range was suggested.
I’m just concerned that we’re doing something wrong and affecting her night sleep. Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks in advance!
Hi @Sara MC, thanks for writing to us and sharing what your daughter’s sleep has been like. Judging by the times you shared, it does look like she’s getting enough sleep in a 24 hour period, just one extra hour is during the day instead of at night. How is her mood? If she is generally happy then it is likely she is getting what she needs, but if she’s super cranky and seeming really tired then it would be something to look into more. If you are concerned still, please contact us directly to [email protected] and we can help you from there figure out what the best plan of action would be to work on this. Hope this helps!
I’m so relieved to hear your response! She is very happy, so I guess she’s just not a long over night sleeper.
Thanks very much.
Hi my 11 month old isn’t sleeping through, he wakes at least 2-3 times a night for feeds. I’ve had problems getting him to eat solid food he prefers finger foods that he can pick up at eat his self. He used to sleep all the way through at one point but he just stopped. I’m shattered and have two other children. I really need to establish a good sleeping pattern
@Melissa – Thank you for reading and for sharing with us! A good sleep routine/pattern is a key element to establishing a better sleep schedule for your 11 month old, so you’re on the right thinking path with that. Here’s a good step 1 article you can check out with tips on getting your 11/12 month old to sleep better: https://www.babysleepsite.com/how-to-get-my-baby-to-sleep/how-to-get-my-11-or-12-month-old-to-sleep/ Hang in there, Melissa!
Hi my son is 11 months heading to 12 months. Only has naps in the car. Still wakes up 2-3 times at night for a bottle.
I put him in his bed for a nap and he throws his bottle and cries.
I have tried letting him cry it out and that still doesn’t work.
Thanks for this post. My 11 month old had been doing probably about averagely well with sleep until about 2 weeks ago when she suddenly started to refuse point blank to go down for a nap, but would still get very sleepy and cranky at naptime so clearly needed her naps. Since then I have been wasting half the day trying to get her to take naps and it was starting to drive me crazy, then i came across this post and realised that she wasn’t eating the right proportions of things at the right times – i was giving her breakfast too early so she wouldn’t eat very much of it and then it would be a couple of hours before she was ready for a nap. And I didn’t usually give her a snack until after her morning nap so she would be hungry and eat a lot of snack but then not be very hungry at lunch time. After reading this post a couple of days ago I have made some drastic changes to her feeding routine so she doesn’t have breakfast until she’s been up for a couple of hours, and she’s eating twice as much breakfast, then doesn’t even need a snack when she wakes up (other than milk feed) and so eats twice as much lunch. Result = she’s going down for naps again. Thank you so much!
@Jen – that is so AMAZING! Thanks so much for sharing. We love hearing that your daughter is sleeping better and you aren’t going crazy trying to get her to nap either!
Hi! I’m looking at the schedules and they are much much different than ours. My 11 month old wakes up between 5:30am and 6:00am every day. Has 3 hour wake period and 2 naps of about 1.5 hours each. He is primarily on breastmilk (pumped) /formula about 28-32 oz per day plus solids. My toddler who is now about 2 1/2 also woke up that early. They get plenty to eat during the day but still wake up early. I’ve tried to give the 11 month old a bottle around 5 and leave him in his crib in hopes he will fall asleep again for a later wake up time but he won’t sleep at that point.
Hi @Azucena, thanks for writing to us. Early waking can be a tricky one, especially when it’s on the edge of not being early (we would consider 5:30 early, but while 7 am is more ideal, some babies do better waking at 6 so that’s typically the earliest we’d say is ok). But there are still things you can do to try to push them later, just may be a bit of trial and error. Here is an article that may help give some tips: https://www.babysleepsite.com/how-we-sleep/baby-waking-too-early/
If you are really over it and need more help, let us know and we would love to help. Feel free to contact us directly anytime at [email protected]
I hope this helps!
My 10 month old (closer to 11 months now actually) has been absolutely refusing the morning nap lately. I will put her down at the regular time 9:30 (she wakes at 6:45 at the latest) and leave the room. She has been self settling for ages, so this shouldn’t be the issue. She doesn’t cry much, mostly just chatters to herself, crawls around, stands up, sometimes lays quietly for a few minutes like she might fall asleep, but doesn’t. She will do this for up to 45 minutes before I go in and just get her up. Do you think it is possible she is wanting to drop the nap at this age? She has a consistent 2 hour nap in the afternoon from 12:30-2:30 (or sometimes 1-3). She sleeps 12 hours through the night.
What are your thoughts/recommendations?
Hi @Sally, thanks for writing to us! Most babies don’t actually go down to 1 nap on average until between 15-18 months. It is super common to get some push back on that morning nap though around this age! Here is an article that explains it a bit more: https://www.babysleepsite.com/baby-naps-2/12-month-olds-one-nap-transition/
Hopefully this helps but if you have any other questions please let us know! We are here to help.