Disclosed by the present application are a discontinuous reception method, terminal device and network device, the method including: a first terminal device determining a target discontinuous reception (DRX) cycle used for the first terminal device to detect a DRX indication signal during a DRX indication cycle which is used for DRX indication signal detection, the DRX indication cycle comprising N DRX cycles, the DRX indication signal being used to indicate that the first terminal device wakes up or sleeps during an activation period of the N DRX cycles after the moment when the DRX indication signal is detected; a first terminal device detecting a DRX indication signal sent by a network device in the target DRX cycle; the first terminal device waking up or sleeping according to the DRX indication signal during the activation period of the N DRX cycles after the moment when the DRX indication signal is detected.