A 5-month-old typically drinks 24 to 32 ounces of breast milk or formula per day, spread across five or six feedings. The exact amount depends on your baby’s weight, whether they’re breastfed or formula-fed, and their individual appetite.
Daily Intake by Weight
The simplest way to estimate how much formula your baby needs is by weight: about 2.5 ounces per pound of body weight per day. A 14-pound baby, for example, would need roughly 35 ounces, but the general recommendation is to cap intake at around 32 ounces in 24 hours. Most 5-month-olds fall somewhere in the 24 to 32 ounce range, with individual feedings averaging 4 to 6 ounces each.
Breastfed babies are harder to measure because you can’t see how much they’re taking in. One useful fact: breastfed infants tend to consume roughly the same total volume per day from about 4 weeks through 6 months. Their intake doesn’t keep climbing the way formula intake sometimes does. If your baby is breastfed, the number of feedings matters more than ounces.
How Often to Feed
At 5 months, most babies eat every 2 to 3 hours during the day, which works out to about five or six feedings in 24 hours. Breastfed babies sometimes feed more frequently, closer to every 2 hours, while formula-fed babies can often go a bit longer between bottles.
Night feedings are still normal at this age. Many 5-month-olds wake once or twice overnight to eat. Formula-fed babies can sometimes stretch longer between night feeds, and some parents begin phasing out night bottles around 6 months. For breastfed babies, nighttime nursing often continues well into the first year.
Breastfed vs. Formula-Fed Differences
Formula-fed babies tend to have more predictable, measurable intake. You can track ounces per bottle and adjust as your baby grows. A typical formula-fed 5-month-old drinks 4 to 6 ounces per feeding, six or so times a day.
Breastfed babies regulate their own intake at the breast, and their feeding sessions vary in length and volume. A breastfed baby might nurse for 10 minutes one session and 25 minutes the next, both of which can be perfectly normal. Rather than tracking volume, the best indicators that a breastfed baby is getting enough are steady weight gain and consistent wet diapers (at least six per day).
Signs Your Baby Is Hungry or Full
At 5 months, your baby gives clear signals about hunger and fullness. Learning these cues is more reliable than sticking to a rigid schedule or forcing a specific number of ounces.
Hunger cues include fists moving to the mouth, head turning as if looking for the breast, lip smacking, sucking on hands, and becoming more alert and active. Crying is actually a late sign of hunger, a distress signal. Ideally, you’ll catch the earlier cues and offer a feeding before your baby reaches that point.
When your baby is full, they’ll pull away from the breast or bottle, turn their head, or visibly relax their body and open their fists. Resist the urge to push them to finish a bottle. Babies are good at self-regulating their intake, and forcing extra ounces can lead to overfeeding.
How to Tell If Intake Is Enough
The most reliable sign that your baby is drinking enough is growth. By 4 to 5 months, most babies have doubled their birth weight, and healthy 5-month-olds typically gain about 1 to 1.25 pounds per month. Your pediatrician tracks this on a growth chart at well-child visits.
Other signs of adequate intake include six or more wet diapers daily, general alertness and activity during wakeful periods, and meeting developmental milestones on a typical timeline. A baby who seems consistently unsatisfied after feedings, is producing fewer wet diapers than usual, or is falling off their growth curve may need more milk or a feeding adjustment.
What About Solid Foods?
At 5 months, breast milk or formula should still be your baby’s only source of nutrition. Both the AAP and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend introducing solid foods at about 6 months, and not before 4 months. Some babies show readiness signs a little early, but at 5 months, milk remains the priority.
Signs of readiness for solids include sitting up with support, good head and neck control, opening the mouth when food is offered, and swallowing food rather than pushing it out with the tongue. If your baby isn’t doing all of these yet, they’re not ready. Even once solids begin, they supplement rather than replace milk for several more months.