Apparatus and methods are disclosed for performing delayed hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) communications in the downlink (DL) to reduce power consumption for a user equipment (UE) during a connected mode discontinuous reception (C-DRX) cycle. An enhanced NodeB can be configured to monitor a physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) for DL HARQ information to determine when the PUCCH contains a negative acknowledgement (NACK) message, and in response to determining that the PUCCH contains a NACK message, the eNodeB can wait until a next C-DRX ON duration to transmit a HARQ DL retransmission. The eNodeB can also determine whether or not to bundle the HARQ DL retransmission in consecutive transmission time intervals, based on a signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) associated with the UE.