In one embodiment, a method of scheduling transmissions for a base station in a multi-carrier wireless communication network comprises scheduling initial transmissions of data packets for one or more users on a first carrier, without reserving scheduling capacity on the first carrier for retransmissions. Doing so increases the scheduled capacity of the first carrier for initial transmissions. The method further includes scheduling retransmissions, as needed, for given ones of the data packets on one or more second carriers. The method allows more traffic to be scheduled on the first carrier, meaning that multi-carrier transmissions are less frequently needed to convey all of the traffic targeted to one or more receivers. Those receivers therefore spend more time operating with a reduced receiver bandwidth (as compared to the bandwidth required for receiving more than one carrier), which reduces operating power.