Help! Night feed demands after illness and almost a year of sleeping well

[MJlovestea]

We are really needing some advice about settling a newbie night waker back to sleep. DS has always slept well and slept what we classed as ‘through the night’ without a feed from 3/4 months old. When he has gone through night waking in the past, he has always been comforted by a cuddle or rocking and gone back to sleep relatively easily which has been lucky. Since catching a bug, almost a month ago he his sleeping has gone to pot. During the time he was unwell, we soothed and cuddled and even took him to bed to keep him settled (he was struggling to sleep with a blocked nose as well) and got by. He also went through a fussy phase where he wasn’t eating and seemed to be demanding milk so we started giving him a little milk to go back to sleep which was working..
Now with his eating back on track and with him feeling back to normal, we’re trying to establish a good nights sleep again without much luck. Cutting milk back, or trying water isn’t working. We even tried to let him cry it out which we have never done and it was very traumatic. Ended up giving in to milk after 1 hour and 20 mins of tears that got absolutely hysterical.
This is so new to us and we are really looking for any advice that help DS, it’s easy to feed milk but I know he doesn’t need the nutrition from it and is capable of sleeping through.
Teething might be coming into play too but we have give him gel or calpol where it looks like he needs it.
Napping okay, gone from one short and one long nap to one middle of the day nap. He might be overtired but I don’t control it too much and let him nap if he needs it.
Any advice greatly appreciated.