We've always put our DS to bed early (around 7pm at 6 months). He is now 19 months old and still has 3 bottles a day with 1 day sleep so you should be able to fit in more bottles easily. Ewans routine is roughly this:

wakes around 6ish - bottle (only half about 100mls)
breakfast at around 7.30 (cereal)
morning tea around 10.30 (eg fruit/rice crackers)
bottle (250ml) at around 11.45
sleep by 12noon till 1.30-2pm
dinner at 5.30ish
bath at 7pm
bottle and bed at 7.30pm
sleeps through to 6ish and then starts all over!!

He used to go to bed earlier (around 7pm) and then have an afternoon sleep too so he would get an extra bottle but when he dropped his afternoon sleep (at about 13 months) he dropped the bottle.

It just kind of worked out that way for us so we stick to it and he likes his routine, it helps him know what to expect for his day and it means he's never too overtired to sleep. He just rolls over closes his eyes and that's that - doesn't cry and carry on.

He was waking for overnight feeds up until 4 months or so ago and we gave him 2 o/n bottles until he was about 8 months old, 1 o/n bottle till he was around 16 months and now he sleeps through.

I know it's hard to know what you are "supposed" to do but we just did what worked for us and our DS and we'll do the same for our little princess when she arrives. We didn't like the idea of control crying so we just waited until Ewan was ready to drop his o/n bottles and knew that when he was ready he'd sleep through and he did. Maybe it took longer than it "should" have but it meant he was never left crying in the dark and bed time was never a battle zone as he knew when he woke one either his Mummy or Daddy would come for him.

He's happy, is a very active little man, sleeps well now so it was worth the wait.