A method for measuring beams includes determining a measurement period duration in accordance with periods of one or more periodic beam failure detection (BFD) reference signals (RSs) of a BFD RS set, wherein the BFD RSs of the one or more BFD RSs of the BFD RS set have a quasi-co-located (QCL) relationship with demodulation RSs (DMRSs) of PDCCH receptions monitored by a user equipment (UE), monitoring a subset of the one or more BFD RSs having the QCL relationship with the DMRSs of PDCCH receptions monitored by the UE that occur during a measurement period, and determining that measures of all BFD RSs in the subset of the one or more BFD RSs do not meet a specified threshold, and based thereon, reporting a beam failure (BF) instance.