weaning at 6 months onwards, how soon did you introduce meat etc for protein and iron?

[alibo]

ds is nearly 6 months but 3.5 weeks early, will start weaning soon. gf book based on them having fruit and veg etc for 8 weeks, between 4 an 6 months, and then gradually introducing meat at 6 months for iron content, protein etc. If you only start weaning at 6 months anyway, do you introduce meat and protein sooner? ,and how quickly do you progress from baby rice, pureed fruit and veg , to veg with meat? Any advice welcome, don't seem to get much from hv!!

I think we introduced meat at 8 months; just a little chicken at first to let his tummy get used to it, before moving on to liver, lamb, beef, etc. He's now a year old and I wouldn't feed him bacon because too salty, or rich meat like goose or duck yet but that's just my idea.
BTW, I'm a vegetarian and really resented my mother and others saying 'you won't force him to be a vegetarian will you, it isn't healthy and it's not fair to force your views on him'. Like it's somehow fair to force meat eating on him... actually I'm happy for dh to feed him meat anyway but I won't feed him lamb myself, turns my stomach.

I started on fruit and veg and then introduced meat after 2 weeksd. Didnt do the rice thing.

Thanks for replies, been looking at gina ford book for weaning. If you miss out the baby rice stage what do you give for tea/supper that will fill/satisfy them, as she recommends fruit/baby rice mix for first two months of weaning for this meal?

I weaned at just over 6 mths and skipped baby rice altogether - well, only used it for the first day or so. We do veggies at lunchtime and fruit in the evenings. The fruit is pureed but without baby rice mixed in - Annabel Karmel and Lizzie Vann (Baby Organix) have nice puree mixes. If I feel he's still peckish after the fruit puree, I'll give him some banana to chew on. Haven't started on meat yet but am going to do some chicken casserole this week to get that moving along as he's almost 8 mths now. HTH.

started on liver casserole here at about 7-8 mths, went down wel, she also adores lentils a la Annabel Karmel, any basic casserole worked well too...
we weaned after 6 mths dd was on to straight fruit and veges mixed with expressed breast milk...
baby rice
ugh