A method for communicating with a network is presented. The method includes receiving an assignment of first timeslots for uplink communications, and receiving a first data block having a first block sequence number and including an instruction to reduce monitoring to a set of timeslots. The set of timeslots has a number of timeslots less than a number of timeslots to be monitored in accordance with the assignment. The method includes determining that at least one second data block having a second block sequence number that is less than the first block sequence number was not successfully received from the network, reducing a number of timeslots monitored to the set of timeslots, and receiving a retransmission of the at least one second data block from the network using a timeslot in the set of timeslots.