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Craig, Chinese kids are born on Junks every day of the week.
They survive, and I think your children will too.
My daughter was born in February of 1977 and by July of 1977, (age: 4 months) she was a mile or more off-shore in the Atlantic Ocean, watching the 4th of July fireworks. One of my more enduring memories, is looking down into those huge baby-blue eyes and seeing the fireworks in the skies reflected in her eyes, superimposed over the sense of wonder on her face. The Coast Guard requirements were more lenient back then, and we had two PFDs lashed on either side of her bassinet, in the cabin, and an infant PFD when she was up on deck.
The first thing to do is to REALLY be able to single-hand your boat.
Tiller locks, lines led aft, anchors pre-loaded for emergencies, the whole bit. This includes being able to temporarily secure your child, if necessary. Everyone's circumstances are different, but I had no problem whatever sailing with infants and small children. while single-handing the boat. When I first got my sailboat in 1976, our finances did not permit infant day-care, so my wife got a night job (6pm-2am), which left her free to watch the kids during the day, and left me to watch them at night.
Our usual drill was to come home from work, hook up the boat, drop the wife off at work, sometimes pick up a bucket of chicken (if my wife hadn't prepared and packed dinner ahead of time), and head for a ramp. We'd plop the kids in the boat and sail around and admire the sunset and whatnot.
We had either Oreo's or Chips Ahoy for dessert. In order to get a bag of cookies to last longer than 30 seconds, we instituted a Rule, that cookies could only be consumed after passing an ICW marker. This delaying tactic had the unexpected advantage of turning my kids into Eagle-Eyed Cracker-Jack Navigators! 
Boy!  Just TRY and fall off a few degrees off course and you would get all kinds of high-pitched criticisms, of your helm technique!
The one kid was nearly 5 and the other was in diapers, when we started this. I developed the bungee cord arrangement to lock the tiller in place, not so much for single-handing, as to be able to change a diaper in the cockpit! This was perfect in my boat. The space was confined, easy to keep the kid in control from squirming away and any further "accidents", simply drained into the Bay! I read posts from time to time, about the difficulties of single-handed sailing. Try sailing, as the only adult aboard a boat with a pre-school child and an infant! After that, single-handing is EASY! 
We'd get home around 10pm, get everybody in the tub and then off to bed.
Keeping babies up so late, what was I thinking?
I was thinking the later I kept the kids up, the more sleep my wife got, the following morning. Yes, infants need nearly 12 hours of sleep, but it doesn't necessarily HAVE to be from 8pm to 8am.
Consider what happened as a result of this:
1) Kids grew up, not being dependent on TV.
2) They learned to read the weather, before they could read books.
3) They learned mnemonics like "east is least, but west is best" or "red sky at morning" etc. etc. before they learned nursery rhymes.
4) They learned to navigate better than an America's Cup Skipper.
(Maybe they should issue Oreo's, on Cup Trials! )
5) They learned how to deal with all kinds of weather.
For example: In 35 knots, on one January nor-easter, sails reefed to the numbers,  trying desperately to get back to port, when I heard this keening sound,  amidst the wind howling through the rigging. Thinking the hull was coming apart, I looked inside the cabin. It was the kids, who had turned a berth cushion sideways in the cabin and were sliding back and forth, as the boat rolled! I am in fear for our very lives and the kids are treating it, like it was an E ticket ride at Disney World! Now, if you saw something like that, would you EVER worry again, about some bully taking lunch money from your kids?
6) I learned more about their personalities and the different facets of those personalities, than any school psychologist would have ever dreamed of.
7) I learned about the differences in interaction with their Mother on the weekends.
(Are these the SAME kids?)
My daughter was born in February, and by the 4th of July, we were watching the fireworks off south Beach, so 3 years or even 8 months is not necessarily too early to be sailing with an infant. Here are some of their general problems:
SUN:
No melanine in their bodies, yet. They can burn in < 30 minutes UNDER a bimini top, from light reflection off the sail or light reflection off the water onto the white parts of the hull! They have SPF 50 for infants that will not irritate their skin, although the prudent parent will test it before they get out on the water.
You need a cabin to get them out of the heat and out of the sun. You need to make sure that light from the ports can not reach them. They will turn into the light, like little sunflowers and UV damage their eyes. If you don't have curtains for your ports, get them.
HEAT/HUMIDITY:
No way to shed it, as efficiently as a child or an adult, since their limbs are too short. Here in south Florida, babies are born in air-conditioned hospitals, whisked home in air-conditioned cars and let into air-conditioned homes. The mild amount of skin creme needed at home, is all of a sudden, woefully inefficient out on the boat, on a warm day. Use half again to twice as much as creme on the boat as you use at home to prevent heat rash, as the heat and moisture on the water, combine to create diaper heat rashes that would never occur on land. In our case, my daughter was rarely above decks in significant sunlight, before about 9 months old, or so.
You also know about trickling a little water down the spine, to prevent shock to the infant's system when immersed, right? If not, it might be time to have a long discussion with your pediatrician, about your boating plans.
VENTILATION:
Consider forced air (fans, whatnot), or else figure out how to deal with a forward hatch being open, and not snagging all the jib sheets. Your companionway hatch will be open most of the time too, so you can look in on the infant and Momma. Babies don't have the same ability to vent/store heat, as an adult. Not as much thermal variation room in the extremities, since the extremities are still pretty short, at this point.
FLUIDS:
Babies go through half again the amount of fluids, on a boat, that they do at home. Bring lots. I once watched my 4 year-old son, chug a gallon of chocolate milk in less than 3 hours and not have to pee once. When we ran out of kiddy fluids, we had to go home.
SECURING:
We had flotation lashed to the baby's bassinet and the baby strapped into the bassinet. As soon as she was ambulatory, we switched to those baby PFDs. They need a big collar to support the over-sized head and developing neck muscles. It also minimizes waves splashing in their face.
PFDs:
An on-going nightmare. The first thing I noticed about your post, was expressing age (one kid, 3 years and one kid, 8 months), instead of weight. When my grandbaby was 4 months old, she weighed 30 pounds. My daughter's co-worker had a grandbaby that was 7 months old, and also weighed 30 pounds. Weight, is what you are trying to keep afloat here, not age.
Forget age, stick with size.
Do not purchase anything without trying it on the kid first, right in the store. Look for neck and/or head chafe; also under the chin and neck. Their skin is (literally!) baby-fine and the seams on the top of the PFD where it rubs under their neck can look like someone attempted to cut their throat with a dull knife, inside of four hours.
Perusing the Coast Guard link:
http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-m/mse4/pfdchild.htm
shows a number of infant flotation devices.
Infant PFDs need to have a LOT of head support. The one we had was partially conical, so that as the child sank into the water, it supported her head better and better. Figure on a new one about every 8-10 weeks until age 2 or 3. Don't cheap out, here. A poorly fitting PFD, is dangerous.
We also modified stock PFDs with home-made add-on leg straps. You want a sobering experience? Put a PFD on a kid at the store, lift the PFD up from the top, and see if the kid comes off the floor with the PFD, or stays there, while you hold an empty PFD (your blood freezing in your veins, all the while)  trying not to think about what could have happened out on the water. In all fairness, today's designs are much better than 25-some-odd years ago.
Another thing we did, was eye splice a yoke across the shoulders of the PFD. A kid with a handle is a Marvelous Thing, and that line was the first thing we shackled the kid with, anytime the weather kicked up. I have pictures of her at age 2, (droopy diapers and all) laughing and pointing at dolphins swimming in formation with the boat, about 20 miles offshore from Key Largo in an 18 foot sailboat. You can just make out the tether on the PFD in the picture, but her body stance shows no awareness of it. In Florida, kids under 6 years are required to be in PFDs at all times while on the water (check that wording, not just while on the boat, but while on the water). A cool thing about raising a child on a sailboat from infancy, is that they never question wearing their PFD as they get older (and more independent!  ), because they can't remember a time, when they DIDN'T wear one.
You see that child’s PFD in the store and think of that as the end of it, when you should see it merely as a beginning point. Take the ordinary child’s PFD, then:
1) Add a shoulder yoke.
Yeah, I know, some PFDs these days come with a piece of nylon fabric handle sewn right into the shoulder/collar.
Add your own yoke.
Don't trust your kid to a fabric seam sewn by a third-worlder, in return for a bowl of rice; they simply don't have the same vested interest in boating safety that you do.
2) Add a tether to the yoke.
3) Add leg/crotch straps.
4) Add a whistle to the PFD, on a lanyard that can reach the mouth, but NOT encircle the throat.
5) Add a cyalume stick to the PFD.
My kids were allowed to blow the whistles WHENEVER they wanted.
Yes, it was Hell for the first two hours, but the novelty wears off. The last thing you want, is a Little Peanut over the side in the dark that's afraid to blow the whistle because "they might get in trouble with Daddy".
Let 'em blow! Let 'em blow! Let 'em blow!
Cyalume sticks are another must-have. When the kids were little, they were snapped (set off) as soon as the sun went down. Different color cyalume sticks are also nice to differentiate the kids in the dark. As they got a little older, we showed them how to deploy the cyalume sticks, themselves. They were allowed to snap one off whenever they wanted. The novelty wears off fairly quickly in this, as well. The sole restriction I placed on them was that they did not get another cyalume stick, until the first one faded out. Both the whistle and the cyalume sticks were backup safety devices. The primary safety device was a lanyard with a shackle on the yoke of the PFD. It helps a lot, if the kid can not get further overboard than the length of the lanyard; at which point you simply haul them back aboard. As they got older, they wanted to range further and it was a simple matter to rig two jacklines, so they could go up and down the length of the boat, but still remain tethered to the boat. One jackline went down the length of the boat above deck and the other went down the inside of the cabin and exited out the forehatch. (So they could reach the Porta-Potti; toilet training goes on, whether by Land Or By Sea.) When I saw your pic of your kid, my first thought was: "Where’s the jackline?" This is another example of the reason for a shoulder yoke mounted tethering point. It minimizes the chance of getting around the kids throat, should they fall.
The Coast Guard says kids must have (IIRC) PFDs while on the water until age 6. When my kids reached that particular age milestone, they learned that there was the Coast Guard's Rules and then there was DAD'S Rules.
My criterion was simple:
When they could go over the side, swim completely around the boat, and re-board un-assisted, then they could forego PFDs . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . Except when the Captain deemed them necessary. Son made it around age 10 and the daughter around age 12, IIRC. I use this same criterion for my Friends's kids when they are aboard my sailboat, as well.
STORAGE:
The life support system of an infant is truly amazing. I prided myself on my boat storage capabilities. I had more nooks and crannies and lockers; some that were even EMPTY, since I didn’t have anything to put in them!
Then I got kids.
Ever loaded up a car, when the kid goes to see Grandma? Double it, and then imagine where in your boat, you're going to put it all.
Things You Don't Want To Think About:
A cyalume stick on the bassinet, and/or PFD at night.
A tether on the bassinet and/or PFD, secured to the boat.
Mosquito netting on the bassinet.
A bite to you, looks like a cat o' nine tails welt, on an infant.
Both my kids virtually grew up on the sailboat, and I am proud of the way they turned out, and sincerely believe a lot of their character, came from being out on that boat. It's great to have kids, who can tie a bowline, tell winds aloft velocity and direction, with a mere glance at the clouds, and in general, handle themselves well in most any situation.
A Final Word About Mom:
Mom’s job is NOT to ensure the safety of the kids on YOUR boat.
YOUR job is to handle your boat and everyone aboard your boat. Think things ahead, plan things through, mentally work out your contingency plans, ahead of time. I have to re-emphasize: Learn to single-hand your boat WELL. THEN bring aboard the kids, when you CAN take your attention off the boat for moments at a time. When you feel you have that under control, THEN it’s time to bring Mom. HER job is the last-ditch back-stopping of anything you happened to screw up. She should be able to sit there and know her hatchlings are reasonably safe aboard. Otherwise, it's just one long tension-cruise for her. Watch for those little "tension" knots at the corners of her jaws. If you see any, find out why and fix it, FAST. Stress her out aboard, and she very quickly won't want to go sailing with you.
It's a real blast, boating with little kids, just take the same prudent precautions you would expect to use, with one of the most complicated life support systems (a little kid!), you and your boat ever had to deal with. How much or how little you sail or single-hand with kids, is all between your ears. Your kids will surprise you, with what they can do.
Mine always did.
Charles Brennan
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