How to Play Pokémon Sleep

This guide explains the core loop of Pokémon Sleep: how sleep tracking turns into research, how you strengthen Snorlax, and how befriending Pokémon builds the team that drives your progress. Whether you're new to the game or returning after a break, we'll walk through what happens each week and where to go for deeper dives on catching, cooking, and evaluating your Pokémon.

What Pokémon Sleep is

Pokémon Sleep is a sleep-tracking game. You record your sleep via the app, a Plus+ device, or a supported smartwatch.

Each morning the app runs a research session. Pokémon appear at your camp, and you befriend them with biscuits to add them to your helper team.

Snorlax grows stronger when you feed it berries and cooked meals. That team then gathers berries and ingredients and can trigger main skills—all of which feed back into Snorlax's strength.

Stronger Snorlax improves the quality and variety of spawns and the rewards you earn. The cycle repeats each week in the area you choose.

Go deeper: Start here (pick your path) · Glossary · Berries by area (weekly favorites)

The weekly loop

Monday: Sleep research (from Sunday night), pick a new area, strengthen Snorlax (berries and meals), then sleep.

Tuesday through Sunday: Sleep research (from the previous night), strengthen Snorlax, then sleep.

Each morning you open research to see which Pokémon showed up, feed Snorlax berries from your team's finds, and cook up to three meals per day using ingredients your team has gathered and what's in your bag. Snorlax's rank (its strength rating) rises as you feed it. Higher rank improves drowsy power and influences which species and sleep styles can appear. Understanding this cycle makes it easier to see why team composition, biscuits, and cooking all matter.

Go deeper: Berries by area (match team to Snorlax favorites) · How to reach Master 20 · Glossary: drowsy power

Your team (helpers)

You field up to five Pokémon at a time. Every helper finds berries, finds ingredients, and triggers its main skill. A Pokémon's specialty is which of those three it's best at—Berry, Ingredient, or Skill.

You optimize by choosing which Pokémon to invest in: candies and dream shards level them up, and ideally you invest in ones that will be strong at their role by level 50. You can't control what modifiers a Pokémon has (subskills, nature, ingredient spread); those are set when you befriend it. For how the game determines those stats at catch, see How Pokémon Sleep stats are determined.

Helpers produce over time; each production cycle is called a help. How often a Pokémon helps depends on its frequency and current energy. Each helper has an inventory that fills as they gather; subskills like Inventory Up S/M/L increase how much they can hold. A bigger inventory is valuable when you're not playing—it takes longer for the Pokémon to fill up, so you lose less potential production between sessions. That's why many players care about which biscuits they use and what they catch.

Go deeper: How stats are determined · How production works (help, frequency, energy) · Main skills · Grade a Pokémon (Unlimited Biscuits)

Catching and befriending

When Pokémon appear at camp, you befriend them by feeding biscuits to fill their friendship bar. Each species needs a set number of points (the community calls them pips): many need 5, others 7, 10, or more—rarer species can need up to 20.

Poké Biscuit = 1 pip, Great = 3, Ultra = 5. When a Pokémon is hungry, any biscuit counts 3× (a big hit), so one Great on a hungry Pokémon = 9 pips. Sometimes a hungry feed gives an instant catch (mega hit); shinies always mega hit, so use a regular Poké Biscuit on shinies and never Great or Ultra. You get one bonus biscuit per day (3 pips, or 4 with Premium), but it must be used during that sleep session—it can't be saved. Biscuits are limited (sleep points or diamonds), so prioritizing hungry spawns and avoiding overfeeding matters.

Go deeper: How to catch and befriend Pokémon · Glossary: catching

Cooking and dishes

You cook up to three meals per day. Your pot caps how many ingredients can go into each cook; a larger pot and a higher recipe level (earned by cooking the same dish repeatedly) both increase dish strength.

Ingredients come from your team's finds and from your bag. Stronger meals give Snorlax more strength per feed.

There is also a random chance each cook for an "Extra Tasty" result, which multiplies the dish's strength. Worth keeping in mind: big numbers (e.g. 200k+ strength) come from stacking recipe level, pot size, ingredients, Tasty Chance, and sometimes event bonuses.

Go deeper: Pot simulator (Cook a meal—dish strength and Extra Tasty) · How big dishes work · Ingredients

Why Snorlax rank matters

Higher Snorlax rank means better drowsy power, better spawns, and more candy and dream shards. When you reach each rank for the first time, you earn dream shards (and possibly other rewards); you also earn dream shards every week when you hit that rank with that week's Snorlax.

Many players treat Master 20 as a milestone because by then the main gains from pushing rank have largely plateaued. Reaching it depends on three things: berries (matching your team's berry types to Snorlax's weekly favorites—see Berries by area), dishes (pot size, recipe level, and ingredients), and team composition (the right mix of berry, ingredient, and skill specialists).

For dream shard rewards by area and rank, see Greengrass Isle, Cyan Beach, Taupe Hollow, Snowdrop Tundra, Lapis Lakeside, Old Gold Power Plant, Amber Canyon, and Greengrass Isle (Expert).

Go deeper: How to reach Master 20 · Berries by area · Pot simulator · Ingredients

Evaluating Pokémon

Not every catch is equal. The game rolls subskills, nature, and ingredient spread at catch time; "good" depends on the species, its specialty, and what you already have.

There is no single checklist that fits every situation. We explain a practical framework in How to tell if a Pokémon is good and how we assign tiers (Bad, Okay, Good, Great, Amazing) in What "Good" vs "Amazing" means.

You can grade a Pokémon with NewRolly's Unlimited Biscuits or look up terms in our glossary.

Go deeper: How to tell if a Pokémon is good · What tiers mean · Grade a Pokémon · Rollies (catches to target tier) · Is RNG out to get you?

Terms and next steps

We use a few terms throughout: help is one production cycle (berries, ingredients, or a skill trigger); frequency is how often a Pokémon helps; specialty is Berry, Ingredient, or Skill; drowsy power drives spawn quality after each sleep session.

Full definitions are in the glossary. For how production works under the hood—two rolls per help, energy, and what happens if you switch teams—see How production works.

Next: Start here (pick your path) · Browse articles · FAQ · NewRolly's Unlimited Biscuits (grade & roll) · NewRolly's Rollies (how many catches to a target tier)

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