Methods and apparatuses for switching of physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) monitoring capabilities in a wireless communication system. A method for operating a user equipment includes receiving information to skip reception of a number of PDCCHs over a number of slots; determining an instruction to receive first PDCCHs in first slots from the number of slots based on a transmission of a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) that provides a positive scheduling request (SR) in a first slot that is before the first slots, or skip the reception of the number of PDCCHs in the number of slots based on an absence of transmission of the PUCCH in the first slot; and based on the instruction, receiving the first PDCCHs in the first slots or skipping the reception of the first PDCCHs in the number of slots.