Waking up in the middle of the night

This has become a problem for me.
I lay LO down in his bed, he goes right to sleep. A few hours later, I go to my bed and sleep. A few hours after that he crawls in bed with me, and it's completely fine. Recently, he has started waking up screaming for his daddy. (SO sleeps half the night in bed, until LO comes in and moves to the couch, we all have a weird cycle)
LO screams like he's in pain, kicks his legs around.. after his daddy brakedown he asks for food. Just starving.. Instead of putting him back to sleep, because, at that point.. I just want to go back to bed. I want him to go to sleep...it's almost not worth the fight for me that early. I fix LO some food.. We go back to sleep, all is fine.

ETA, this all happens within like 4 hours of putting LO down.

1, How the hell do I get him to stay in his bed. He will cry until I go pick him up.
Okay, I probably sound like a complete pushover, I know where my faults are. I just want to be nice about it, I hate hearing the boy cry.

2. How do I stop him from wanting food that early? I feed him before bed, or if he does not want to eat I give him milk.

It used to work! Now it's all just a complete mess... and I am missing out on sleep. It's stressing me out.