Cute and Actually Useful: Pokémon Sleep Beginner's Guide

What Is Pokémon Sleep?

Pokémon Sleep is a new sleep-tracking game from The Pokémon Company. All you have to do is sleep like you normally would, and you’ll catch Pokémon while recording your sleep data. It’s fun and surprisingly useful 😀

Pokémon Sleep won’t have actual Pokémon sleeping next to you, but just place your phone or Pokémon GO Plus+ on your bed to start tracking. (Image source: Pokémon Sleep official website)

The gameplay is dead simple: just put your phone or Pokémon GO Plus+ on your bed, and it’ll track your sleep overnight. Wake up the next morning and collect your Pokémon!

I actually used a similar sleep-tracking app a few years back, but without any rewards or game mechanics it got boring pretty quickly 😛
The moment I saw the trailer for this one, I immediately queued up to pre-download it — and yeah, it’s every bit as cute and useful as I’d hoped.
Plus it requires exactly zero effort to play (just lie in bed), unlike Pokémon GO where you actually have to walk around — which is probably why way more of my friends are playing this one 😛

Pokémon Sleep official website: Website
Download: Android, iOS

If you’re interested, feel free to add me as a friend:
Pokémon Sleep: 5589-5461-5584 (full at the moment, but let me know — I’ll add you if a spot opens up :D)
Pokémon GO: 450481758313 (please add me, I have no friends Q_Q I send postcards every day XD)

Basic Gameplay

Pokémon Sleep is as straightforward as its tutorial suggests.

Before bed, place your phone or Pokémon GO Plus+ on your bed or near your pillow, and sleep as you normally would.

The tutorial recommends placing it on something soft (like your bed or beside your pillow) for accurate tracking — leaving it on a nightstand won’t detect anything.

Using your phone: Keep it plugged in, and don’t worry about the screen — just place it face-down and it’ll dim automatically.

Using Pokémon GO Plus+: Hold down the main center button until Pikachu sings a lullaby, and recording begins. Hold it again when you wake up to complete the session.

Remember: your sleep needs to be longer than 1.5 hours to count!

(Images from: Pokémon Sleep official website)

The sleep tracking is actually pretty thorough — it logs a lot:

• Sleep duration, broken down by stage:
  • Time to fall asleep
  • Light dozing
  • Snoozing
  • Deep sleeping
• Audio recordings and ambient sound: you’ll be asked to enable this during the tutorial, but you can turn it off later. It mainly detects snoring — turn it off if you don’t need it. (Twitter… I mean X… has some genuinely weird stories about this feature XD)

You get a weekly summary of your sleep patterns. If you have a Premium Pass, you can unlock extra features (like Sleep Notes) for a deeper look at your habits.

The Pokémon you collect and their sleeping poses vary depending on your sleep type that night. For example, the screenshots above show a sleep type leaning toward “deep sleeping,” so the Pokémon and poses that show up reflect that.

Every Sunday, Snorlax resets, so you can pick a new campsite and meet a new Snorlax.

There are two things to level up as you play:

1. Snorlax: Each week’s new Snorlax needs to be leveled up — do this by sleeping, feeding it meals, collecting Berries, and having your Pokémon use skills to boost Snorlax’s energy.
2. Pokémon: The Pokémon you catch have different skills and ingredient-gathering abilities, so don’t forget to level them up too. You’ll need Candies (different for each Pokémon — see below) and Dream Shards (shared across all Pokémon).

Pokémon Sleep Terminology

Energy / Sleep Points

This is your energy score after sleeping — the more you sleep, the higher your score, and it’s recommended to aim for a full 100 😀
Only Pokémon that slept alongside you (i.e., in your team) will restore energy, so keep that in mind when building your party.

Sleeping a certain number of hours earns you Sleep Points, which you can exchange for items. Early on, it’s best to trade for regular Biscuits — you don’t need to go for Master Biscuits right away.

Diamonds

Obtained by completing missions or through in-app purchases. Used to buy things you can’t get with Sleep Points XD

Candy

Used to level up Pokémon — different for each species. Three ways to get them:

• Photographing sleeping poses: Snapping a Pokémon’s sleep pose also earns candy.
• From your own Pokémon: Once caught, if you see a candy icon on a Pokémon when you open the game, you can harvest it.
• Friends’ research gifts: In Social Research, if a friend researches a particular Pokémon’s sleeping pose, you’ll receive that Pokémon’s candy — which is exactly why it’s worth maxing out your 50 friends as soon as possible XD

When your friends sleep well, you get their Pokémon’s candy too 😛

Dream Shards

Used to level up all Pokémon — universal, so no variation by species.

Campsite / Research Areas

Each location has slightly different Pokémon types:

• Greengrass Isle: Varied
• Cyan Beach: Water (unlocks after completing the 3rd area goal)
• Taupe Hollow: Ground / Rock
• Snowdrop Tundra: Ice
• Lapis Lakeside: Dragon
• Fireember Volcano: Fire

Incense

Burning incense before bed gives different effects. Light it before you sleep! You can get incense by completing missions or purchasing it. Types include:

• Lucky Incense: 2× Dream Shards after sleep — great for leveling.
• Focused Incense: 2× research EXP after sleep — great for leveling.
• Friendly Incense: Guarantees at least 1 Pokémon is in a “hungry” state during snack time — great for catching Pokémon.
• Growth Incense: Helper Pokémon gain 2× EXP after sleep — great for leveling.
• Revival Incense: Helper Pokémon recover 2× energy after sleep — great for restoring Pokémon energy.

Friendship

Fill up a Pokémon’s friendship gauge to invite it onto your team. The required hearts vary by evolution stage. Raise friendship by feeding “Biscuits” — you get one free “Bonus Biscuit” daily, and additional ones can be purchased or earned from missions.

• Stage 1: 5 hearts
• Stage 2: 10+ hearts
• Stage 3: 20+ hearts

Biscuits

Cookies that raise a Pokémon’s friendship level. Based on advice from PTT user henryhuang17, it’s better to prioritize regular Biscuits over Master Biscuits early on (this post is excellent — highly recommend it :D).

• Bonus Biscuit: 1 free per day, generally adds 3 hearts.
• Poké Biscuit: +1 heart.
• Great Biscuit: +3 hearts.
• Master Biscuit: Maxes out friendship.

Meals

You can feed Snorlax at breakfast (6:00), lunch (12:00), and dinner (18:00) every day to boost its level — don’t forget to log in during those windows.

• Snorlax’s preferences: Each Snorlax likes different meals, so check what yours is into.
• Ingredients: Collected by your Pokémon — each one gathers different ingredients.
• Cooking: Different ingredient combinations make different dishes.

For detailed recipes, check the Pokémon Sleep guide site made by @raenonx — it has incredibly thorough ratios and explanations! Note that some high-end dishes require a larger pot, so complete those missions early.

Beginner Tips for Pokémon Sleep

This is a very relaxed game that’s totally enjoyable without spending anything (I haven’t spent a cent beyond buying the Plus+), but if you want to get the most out of playing free, here are some things worth keeping in mind 🙂

Daily must-dos:

• Feed Snorlax three meals a day: Snorlax gets hungry at breakfast (6:00), lunch (12:00), and dinner (18:00). Each Snorlax has different taste preferences, so make sure to cook what it likes 😀
• Hit 100 sleep points every day: Sleeping 8.5 hours gets you the full 100. But if you can’t always hit 8.5 hours, you can manually log a short nap during the day (I usually do this around lunchtime). The minimum is 1.5 hours — if you know you’ll get 7 hours at night, just log 1.5 manually. Manual sleep earns fewer points than actual sleep, but it’s still enough to reach 100.
• Collect Berries from your Pokémon regularly: Each Pokémon gathers different Berries, and each Snorlax has different preferences. Check what this week’s Snorlax likes and send the matching Berries for faster leveling.
• Sleep within your scheduled window: You can set a sleep target time in the app. For example, if I set 23:30, sleeping within ±30 minutes still counts toward missions — so make sure to stick to your bedtime 😀

Other things to note:

• Add 50 friends as soon as possible: Once a friend completes a sleep session, they’ll send you that Pokémon’s candy — and candy is key to leveling your Pokémon faster. Head to Baha or PTT to find people to add :D
• Best time to use the Premium Pass is Sunday night or Monday: Since a new Snorlax appears every Sunday, using your Premium Pass on Sunday night or Monday morning means all those extra rewards go toward the same Snorlax. Much better value!
• Prioritize feeding “hungry” Pokémon first: Each morning after you wake up, Pokémon will be gathered around Snorlax. If you spot a “hungry” one, feed it immediately — giving it a Biscuit right away adds +5 hearts, which can be enough to recruit it on the spot. And Shiny Pokémon are always hungry 😉

Should You Buy the Pokémon GO Plus+?

I picked one up since I was already playing Pokémon GO — this is day two for me.
The main draw for me is that my phone doesn’t have to run all night, which honestly saves a lot on battery wear. That said, there are pros and cons, so here’s my take.

Pros

• Reduces phone usage time — better for your battery long-term.
• Syncs with Pokémon GO for special cross-game missions.
• You get a super cute Pikachu 😀

Pikachu in a little sleeping cap is so adorable!

Cons

• In Taiwan you’re looking at around NT$1,500 — cheaper in Japan, but still a significant purchase.
• Currently pretty buggy: sleep recording errors in Pokémon Sleep, and frequent disconnects in Pokémon GO.

Personally I’d recommend it mainly if you’re already playing Pokémon GO. But if you’ve got the budget and just want one — go for it XD
I bought mine at FamilyMart’s mobile store (it ends up about the same as the cheapest option in Japan). Japan Amazon has more limited editions though, so if you’re interested, worth checking out 😀

Wrap-Up & Thoughts

Sleep tracking as a concept has been around forever, but add Pokémon to the mix and suddenly >////<

I started playing the moment it launched and it’s honestly been really helpful for me personally (and very soothing).
I’ve had a lifelong habit of waking up in the middle of the night, and I’ve recently started addressing it with treatment — and I can clearly see from the data that those wake-ups are getting less frequent. That’s been really useful for tracking progress with my doctor 😀
It also just makes me want to sleep on time since I want to earn more “sleep strength,” which has cut down on my late nights a bit 😛

Highly recommend — come play and let’s compare notes! :D

Thanks for reading :D

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