"sleepy face" is a correct and commonly used phrase in written English.
It refers to someone's facial expression when they are feeling drowsy or tired. Example: "Her eyes were droopy and her lips were slightly parted, displaying a cute sleepy face as she struggled to keep her eyes open during the boring lecture."
There was, oddly, something soothing about watching Dufner amble around Oak Hill Sunday, whatever he was feeling locked tightly behind a sleepy face.
In addition to basic smiles and frowns, many kaomoji were lifted straight from the pages of manga, like the "cold sweat," a smiling face with a bead of sweat on its brow to indicate getting caught doing, thinking, or seeing something embarrassing, and the "sleepy face," which features a bubble of snot emerging from the nose of a sleeping face, a familiar trope in manga and anime.
"Didn't hear back from you--ghost emoticon, sleepy face emoticon--are you all right?" Well?
I whispered, "Do you still think of Grandpa when you use that pillow?" His eyes remained softly closed, and a big smile filled his angelic, sleepy face.
Having a sleepy face, the boy diligently tried to understand and remember his mother's advice.
Meanwhile, Harvey Araton writes in Sports of The Times, "The Man is staying characteristically calm, shaking off minicamp controversies as he did Patriots tacklers last February on third-and-Tyree, brushing off praise as he did all doubters, accepting his new standing as the sleepy-eyed face of the Giants with a familiar aw-shucks shrug".
Sleepy faces peer back at us.
Adults will smile at the sleepy faces on the egg holder and the salt and pepper shakers.
Tiny, fuzzy heads and sleepy faces, first thing in the morning.
The queasy and sleepy faces are cute little yellow euphemisms for being fucked up.
