When my DD was born, I was introduced into the world of an irritable child! I breastfed and co-slept because it made my life less of a living hell, we both were relatively relaxed during the first few months despite my illness and her fidgetiness. It was knackering though, and I did have a two and a half year old who was relatively well behaved, but still had his moments. I turned the front room into a "safe space" and would sleep on the sofa. He would play, watch television and help himself to snacks during the early days. That was my first proper version of "playpen".
I introduced a stairgate onto his bedroom door for early morning waking, if he wouldn't come into mine and sleep, he would be toileted, given a snack and left to play, until I was ready to get up for the day with madam. This was my second version of "playpen". There was always a lot of tidying to do, but I was confident enough to go to my own room and leave him in his.
He started nursery and my DD grew. She walked at the normal year old ish, and crawled and got into everything. She was officially hard work! I was trying to run the house, feed my girl through the night, take my boy to and from school, and run around after crazy daughter. It was tiring and I would take naps when she did, her in her room with the stairgate and me on the sofa next door. That was version three of the "playpen" I guess. Very fleeting because my DD dropped daytime naps well before I was ready for her to.
And so version four of the "playpen" evolved. Similar to version one except I had to do much much more safety proofing. I didn't know at that point why I needed to sleep so much, got called lazy a lot, but I knew that as a mum to comfortably cope with my children in my circumstances, I had to get a certain amount of sleep and I'd nap to ensure I was fit to cope.
Obviously now I know I have inflammatory arthritis and chronic kidney problems, I know it's my general health that means I need to sleep a lot. But I shouldn't have needed to justify myself before I knew this. I was doing what I though best in the interests of myself and my children. Most of the time it was right. DD has had great delight in proving me wrong a few times.
I mean, this girl is four years old now, and despite the fact that I have and extra lock and turned handle on the door to downstairs, she managed to sneak past, let herself out the house and got brought back to me in the middle of the night by the police!! I have alarms and many more locks now obviously.
You do your best, if you thought your DS would moan and wake you after an hour, and he didn't then WHOOPS your nap was a bit longer, but you say yourself you checked the pen for safety measures and left a baby monitor, if he was content, or fell back asleep (which I think is likely) then that's fine. Nothing happened, and if you feel uncomfortable with that amount of time you know to set an alarm next time too.
If you do struggle a bit with tiredness, and there's no real explanation, do get yourself checked over though. Just to be sure you are well. That being said, I like a nap, even when I don't need a nap. Keeps my brain functioning and means I can manage to enjoy the evening, instead of feeling like I am dropping.