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The Senate convened briefly Thursday afternoon before adjourning until Monday, Dec. 31, the latest sign that lawmakers don’t expect to reach an agreement to end the shutdown this year. The Senate session Monday is likely to be a perfunctory, brief session absent any developments.

Currently in its sixth day, the third partial government shutdown of the year began on Saturday after President Trump and House Republicans upended a bipartisan Senate agreement to fund the government through Feb. 8, with Mr. Trump insisting on securing $5 billion for the wall.

The shutdown has affected nine of 15 federal agencies, forcing about 380,000 employees to take unpaid leave, also known as furlough, while other workers, deemed essential employees, are set to work without pay.

Neither the House nor the Senate are scheduled to hold any votes before Monday at the earliest, and congressional aides from both parties were pessimistic any agreement to reopen the government would be struck before Democrats take control of the House on Thursday, Jan. 3.

“At this point, it looks like we could be in for a long-term shutdown,” said Rep. Mark Meadows (R., N.C.) on CNN Thursday after the Senate adjourned.

Mr. Trump has appeared to harden his stance in recent days that he won’t agree to a spending deal unless it includes billions in funding for the wall along the border with Mexico. Meanwhile, Democrats on the brink of taking back the House next week have little incentive to cede to Mr. Trump now. Given the stalemate, Hill aides said Thursday that they didn’t expect to strike a deal before Jan. 3 unless those dynamics were to suddenly change.

“The president does not want the government to remain shut down, but he will not sign a proposal that does not first prioritize our [country’s] safety and security,” the White House said in a statement Thursday. Mr. Trump is talking “constantly” with his negotiating team about the state of the shutdown talks, according to a White House official.

The president has indefinitely delayed his holiday trip to Florida as the White House negotiates with lawmakers.

Congressional leaders reached a deal last week not to hold any votes until a deal is struck, at which point lawmakers would be given 24 hours’ notice to return to Washington.

The prolonged gridlock has frustrated lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, who had hoped to avoid a shutdown. Congressional Republicans would prefer to cut a deal this year, while they still control both chambers, but GOP aides said neither Mr. Trump nor Democrats have shown any willingness to budge.

When asked how long the shutdown would last, Mr. Trump said he was prepared to do “whatever it takes” while on a surprise visit to U.S. troops in Iraq. “We need a wall. We need safety for our country. Even from this standpoint. We have terrorists coming in through the southern border,” he said.

Democrats noted that Mr. Trump had said earlier this month that he would be “proud” to shut down the government over the border wall, keeping the political blame squarely on the president.

“There’s absolutely no reason for a partial government shutdown, and this is happening because the president is rejecting multiple, bipartisan options to fund the government and provide billions in additional border security funding,” Sen. Chris Coons (D., Del.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said on Twitter Thursday.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.), who is expected to be elected speaker on Jan. 3, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said earlier this week in a joint statement that different officials from the White House were saying “different things about what the president would accept or not accept to end his Trump Shutdown, making it impossible to know where they stand at any given moment.”

If the shutdown lasts until the new Congress begins, Mrs. Pelosi is expected to move quickly to pass a bill funding the government through Feb. 8 and send it to the Senate. If it passes that chamber, it would still need to be signed by the president to end the impasse.

That bill, which has already been passed by the Senate, would extend current border-security funding, including for fencing, levees and technology but not a concrete wall. Republicans said those funds constitute wall money, while Democrats said that is border security, not wall funding.

In the most recent round of negotiations, Vice President Mike Pence and incoming chief of staff Mick Mulvaney made Mr. Schumer an offer on Saturday that included at least $2.5 billion in border-security funding, according to aides, but the restrictions around the funding weren’t clear.

Mr. Schumer rejected the latest White House offer, saying the two sides remained far apart.

Spending bills require 60 votes to clear procedural hurdles in the Senate, where Republicans hold a 51-49 majority, giving Democrats leverage in the talks.

Mr. Trump had initially demanded that Congress include $5 billion in border-wall funding as part of any year-end spending bill. But in a series of quick reversals last week, he appeared to back off that demand, prompting the Senate to pass the stopgap spending bill with no border-wall funding under the belief he would sign it. Buoyed by House Republicans demanding a bigger fight over the wall, Mr. Trump threatened to veto that bill, upending the negotiations and leading to Saturday’s shutdown.

Write to Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@wsj.com