Welcome to my theory on traveling with children.
~1-3 is the hardest time to travel with kids for a variety of developmental reasons, and the windows before and after that are actually much easier than the general population would assume.
traveling with a 2.5 year old and a 4 year was 10x, 100x, possibly 1000x easier than traveling with a 1.5 year old and a 3 year old