A method and apparatus for discontinuous reception (DRX) in a mobile terminal are disclosed. The discontinuous reception method includes: receiving DRX information for DRX operation based on DRX cycles having an on-duration and an off-duration; determining, when semi-persistent resources are allocated, an offset of the DRX cycles so that the time of semi-persistent resource allocation belongs to the on-duration of one DRX cycle; checking whether a packet is successfully received through the allocated semi-persistent resources; and performing, when a packet is successfully received, DRX operation according to the received DRX information and determined offset. The discontinuous reception apparatus performs discontinuous reception using the method.