Your First Week in Pokémon Sleep

You just downloaded the game, and you're not sure what to do. That's completely normal. This guide walks you through what to expect during your first week—how sleep tracking works, what happens each morning, and how the pieces start to fit together. The most important thing to know up front: you can't ruin anything. There are no permanent mistakes while you're learning.

You can't ruin anything

This is the single most important thing to understand as a new player: you're a Pokémon Sleep researcher now. Nothing you do is a mistake—it's just research. There is nothing you can do in your first week, or your first month, that will permanently hurt your account.

You can't waste a Pokémon by leveling the "wrong" one. You can't ruin your team by picking the wrong island. You can't miss a day and fall behind forever. The game is designed to be played over months and years, and early decisions are small compared to the long arc of playing.

If you use a biscuit on the wrong Pokémon? You'll earn more. If you cook a meal that wasn't optimal? Tomorrow has three more meals. If you catch a Pokémon that turns out to be mediocre? You'll catch better ones later—that's the whole game.

So relax. Explore. Try things. Every choice is just data for your research. This guide will give you a foundation, but there's no quiz at the end.

Getting started

Pokémon Sleep is available for free on iOS (App Store) and Android (Google Play). Download it, create an account, and the app walks you through a short tutorial that introduces Snorlax, your camp, and how sleep tracking works.

You'll start on Greengrass Isle, the first research area. The game gives you a Pikachu as your first helper Pokémon. Some experienced players reset their account until this starter Pikachu has great stats—you absolutely do not need to do that. Your starter Pikachu will serve you well regardless, and you'll catch many more Pokémon soon.

You might also see mentions of the Pokémon GO Plus+ device. It's a small accessory that tracks your sleep without needing your phone on the bed. It's entirely optional—your phone works fine on its own. Some players prefer it for convenience, but it's not required to play the game well.

Sleep tracking

Each night before bed, you open the app and tap to start a sleep session. Place your phone on your bed or nightstand—screen down is fine—and go to sleep. The app uses your phone's sensors to track how long you slept and classifies your sleep into types: Dozing, Snoozing, and Slumbering.

In the morning, you tap to end the session and the game calculates your sleep score. A longer, more consistent sleep generally gives a better score. The sleep score feeds into drowsy power, which affects how many Pokémon appear and how rare they are.

Don't stress about optimizing your sleep score right away. Any tracked sleep session gives you research results to work with—even a short one. The game rewards you for sleeping, period. You'll naturally learn what works best for you over time.

Your sleep is also classified by sleep type—a mix of Dozing, Snoozing, and Slumbering. Different Pokémon species are associated with different sleep types, so the way you sleep can influence which species show up. For now, just know it exists; you don't need to manage it in week one.

Your first morning

When you wake up and end your sleep session, the game runs a research session. This is the core daily event—everything else flows from it.

Here's what happens, roughly in order:

After that, you're done until the next time you check in. Some players check back once or twice during the day to collect from their team and cook remaining meals, but there's no penalty for checking in less often.

Your team

You can have up to five helper Pokémon on your team at a time. Helpers work in the background—gathering berries, finding ingredients, and occasionally triggering a main skill (a special ability like restoring energy or adding strength to Snorlax).

Each Pokémon has a specialty: Berry, Ingredient, or Skill. Berry specialists find more berries. Ingredient specialists find more ingredients. Skill specialists trigger their main skill more often. You don't need to understand the details yet—just know that a mix of specialties is generally good.

Pokémon level up using candy (specific to each species) and dream shards (a universal currency you earn from research and weekly rewards). Leveling up makes them help more often and unlocks new bonuses at certain levels. Early on, just level whoever you're using—you'll learn which investments pay off most as you go.

For how the game determines what makes one Pokémon better than another of the same species, see How stats are determined.

Catching Pokémon

After each sleep session, Pokémon appear at your camp. You befriend them by feeding biscuits to fill their friendship bar.

There are a few types of biscuits: Poké Biscuit (1 point), Great Biscuit (3 points), and Ultra Biscuit (5 points). Most common Pokémon need 5 points to befriend, so one Ultra Biscuit would catch them outright.

The big tip for week one: if a Pokémon is marked as hungry, any biscuit you feed it counts for three times the normal value. That means even a Poké Biscuit on a hungry Pokémon gives 3 points. Hungry Pokémon are always your best use of biscuits.

You also get one free bonus biscuit each day (worth 3 points, or 4 with Premium Pass). Use it on whatever interests you—a hungry Pokémon, a species you haven't caught yet, or just anything that looks fun. It expires at the end of the sleep session, so don't save it.

You'll get biscuits from sleep points (earned by sleeping) and diamonds (earned from achievements or bought). Both currencies have other uses too, but biscuits are the main spending priority early on.

Don't worry about catching "the right" Pokémon yet. Catch whatever you can. Every catch gives you candy for that species, and a bigger collection unlocks more of the game.

For the full biscuit strategy—when to use Great vs Ultra, how to avoid wasting biscuits, and how to handle shinies—see How to catch and befriend Pokémon.

Cooking

You can cook up to three meals per day. Each meal feeds Snorlax and adds to its weekly strength.

To cook, you pick a recipe (curry, salad, or dessert) and add ingredients from your bag. Your pot size limits how many ingredients you can add—early on, your pot is small, so dishes will be modest. That's normal.

Each time you cook the same recipe, its recipe level increases. Higher level means stronger dishes from the same ingredients. This is one of the most reliable ways to grow stronger over time—just keep cooking.

Sometimes a cook will randomly be "Extra Tasty," which multiplies the dish's strength. You can't control when this happens, but it's a nice bonus when it does.

For week one, just cook every meal you can with whatever ingredients you have. Don't worry about picking the "optimal" recipe. Cooking anything is better than skipping a meal, and every cook levels up that recipe for next time.

Go deeper: How big dishes work · NewRolly's Pot (cooking simulator) · Ingredients

What to focus on this week

Your only goals this week are to build habits and learn by doing. Here's a simple daily checklist:

That's it. You don't need to optimize your team composition, chase specific subskills, or worry about tier lists. All of that comes later—and it's more fun when you already understand the basics from playing.

Professor NewRolly says: the best Pokémon you can use are the best ones the game gives you. Work with what you have, and you'll be surprised how quickly things start clicking.

Common "did I mess up?" moments

New players often worry they've made a mistake. Here are the most common ones—and why none of them are a problem.

"I used a Great Biscuit on a common Pokémon." You'll earn more biscuits. Great Biscuits are useful but not irreplaceable. Early on, catching anything is progress.

"I leveled up a Pokémon that turned out to be bad." Candy and dream shards spent on an early helper aren't wasted—they helped you progress while you were learning. You'll earn more of both, and early costs are small compared to later ones.

"I picked the wrong island." You can switch islands every Monday. Greengrass Isle is perfect for your first few weeks anyway—the other islands unlock as you progress.

"I missed a day of sleep tracking." Nothing bad happens. There's no streak penalty and no punishment. You can manually enter your sleep to restore your helpers' energy, and your daily bonus biscuit will be available in your next sleep research session. Just pick it back up tomorrow.

"I cooked a bad recipe." Every cook levels up that recipe, so even a "bad" cook is progress. Tomorrow you get three more meals.

"I don't know what any of this means." That's exactly what the first week is for. The game has a lot of systems, and they reveal themselves gradually. By week two you'll already feel more comfortable, and by week four most of it will feel natural.

What's next

After your first week you'll have a small team, some sense of the daily rhythm, and questions about how to get better. That's exactly where the rest of this site comes in.

Remember: the best way to learn this game is to play it. Everything on this site will make more sense once you've had a few mornings of research sessions under your belt. You're not behind. You're right where you should be.

Part of Getting started